BrewerFan

I actually said to my Dad he'll start through the Cubs series and he'll go on the IL with a Calf Strain or something. They won't say it's his arm or oblique because they won't want to scare people, but... something to just let him rest and get him ready for the stretch. BUT... he did take a good shot off the leg. If he's limping or something... that could impact everything. So maybe this is legit. Still hyper-cautious, but an actual bruised and sore leg? Either way, when people were "fine" with giving up Henderson for 2 months of Suarez... the few that were, how many other teams have the luxury of bringing up a guy like Henderson to fill in? Also, selfishly, I wouldn't be bothered if a couple other NL rookies REALLY start just getting hot and Mis slides down the ROY list!

So you're alright with just winning in the regular season and never contending for a World Series? Sorry I have higher standards that you! I'd have traded Made and Pena for that Ship!

I'm annoyed with the Cortes/Quintana trade. Why the Brewers would trade Quintana, a kid that just turned 18, a kid that was the top prospect in the same class as Pena and Made, which I understand doesn't make him as good as either, but you got back who? A fast 28-year-old OFer who... hasn't done much. An above average starting pitcher wasn't enough for him(especially considering what the Padres throw around in trades). Quintana is exactly the type of prospect I don't like just throwing into a trade. He just turned 18 3 months ago, he's a switch hitting SS with a 50 overall grade. In all likelihood, he won't end up becoming an impact player, but if he were in HS, he'd barely be old for the Sr class and eligible for next years draft. I wonder if he had just played a HS season, what he'd have done? Bet he gets picked pretty highly. and he's still be pretty young for the class. You got a prospect who seems like a defensive OFer who is a AAAA player and you had to give him up? I'd guess Quintana was on his way to LowA with Made and Pena getting the move up here shortly. And it's not that I wouldn't want to trade Quintana, he was just valued as...what? Nothing. I'd have rather traded the Quintana who is starting for us, thrown Nestor into the rotation. I imagine we'd have been able to get another OFer in that deal. And then we paid for it. That seems insane. But, that said. -I'm counting the trades we've made this year. We made them "before the deadline." So-Priester-Also hated that trade at the time. Just found out he went to school with a friend of mine's sister. Irrespective of that, he's been throwing like a #2. A++ -Andrew Vaughn For the first week he came up, I said, "well, this rally is over." Zero faith. I thought he may run into a couple but hit .210 if he got hot. He's been a MVP caliber player if you extrapolate what he's done during the time he's been here, and the swings have been great. A+++++(two more pluses than Priester because we didn't have to give up the 33rd pick, a really good young CFer and a pitcher. Danny Jansen -I think he has a .770 OPS since June 1st. We gave up a guy who was blocked, but a nice player. Big time protection against Contreras getting hurt AND gives Contreras time off. Plus, Contreras just had a 5 hit game. .632./.650/1.211 and a 1.861 OP. I Mena, I'd like to see more walks. .632 BA and only a .650 OBP? Kinda weak. But, we gave up very little. So; B+ Shelby Miller+Jordan Montgomery I wanted a high leverage reliever to slot in ahead of Mears. I do not think that's what Miller is, but I think he is a good reliever. We only had to give up money in the form of Montgomery. I hope he hangs out in the Brewers clubhouse as I'd like to see him rehab with the Brewers and maybe sign a 1./10M deal next year. The Brewers liked him, he'd be a good lefty and I think he has good stuff and we all know TJ tends to add 1-3 MPH...generally 1-2, but I'm going to be optimistic. I would still prefer 3./60 and more likely 3./75 for Woody, he's a veteran leader, but it's not the place for that. Only took on money A- Would have liked Duran, that would have cost Henderson+a guy like Wilken+. If not Hendo and Quero. Too much. Cortes+Quintanta--- FFFFF Cortes should have been kept and we could have added any number of OFers for cheap Quintana has a big first half next year and he's knocking on the top 100. If nothing else, you got VERY little trade value for both players. I would hae thought either player was an overpay, we gave up both. F Overall, my priority was NOT giving up a big haul as despite what Twitter says, we're a EXTREMELY WELL run organization. A reason I like posting here, the posters get it. We ALL understand that Jesus Made could VERY easily play 40 games for the Brewers over 2 years and be so bad that he's DFAed or traded to a team that sees his prospect ranking and wants to try and rehab him. So he could be a huge bust. We all understand that risk is acceptable when you see the surplus value that you get in the ONE in 20 chance that he becomes an MVP candidate as a SHing SS. That's worth maybe 200M for the Brewers, more if you can sign him like chourio. So would I have loved Naylor at 1B/DH? Yes, O'Hearn? Sure. I REALLY would have loved Duran/Bautista/Helsley and the package the As gave up was great(not for Made). But the prices were prohibitive and while we didn't improve our chances and now a series vs the Pads may be a bit more difficult...and while Suarez didn't go for a ton, he DID go for roughly what I'd equate to Luke Adams/Brice Wlken, Letson and Knoth. Maybe more as Seattle may be one of the few teams with a deeper farm system. Just hope Hoskins can come back and hit for some pop. Chourio needs to get back and stay hot. Contreras getting hot would be HUGE and Logan Henderson and Shelby Miller to the pen makes that Pen so much tougher. Overall A- A for the players B-For not getting that final bat A for not overpaying with a future core player.

That's... exactly what I'm thinking. I also think AMD ( as well as AVGO, SMCI, VRT) are going to see big returns also as will... but that's just because of the scope of the investment. Projected to be 1T a year by 2030). At 270B, AMD can get to 1T much easier than NVDA at ~4.5T(I know it dropped today, but when it hit it's ATH) will hit 13T. But... it does still have a massive runway. It's clearly the 1500 hundred pound Gorilla in the room... Nvidia really is just... an incredible story. And I think we did the right thing by allowing them to sell the H20 and...I'm hearing the B20 may be approved next year to China. Far better to keep China dependent on Nvidia, the Cuda platform. Better than Huawei developing GPUs that can compete for now. **I also read a story that there are at least 5 companies now specializing in fixing H100 GPUs or even the H200 NVL. Now if there is that type of demand in China for GPUs that were never legal to sell there... As for the Quantum stocks, I suspect they'll see 5-7 again, but there's plenty of time to get back in on those.

Not May, but yeah, when we came out with tariffs at the highest level since 1922, higher than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that caused the market to crash in less than 2 1/2 days of trading. I'm lucky, I've got a friend who manages over 1B for one of the largest investment firms in the Country, but even then, he said he had no idea how low things could go. Said he was holding personally, they'd been hedging in the fund before that so they didn't get hit as hard, but nobody knew what was going to happen with those... asinine tariffs. I mean, we still don't completely know as it takes years to work out a trade deal, so even the trade "deals" we're getting are just... broad outlines like we're trying to do with China... the one Country we ACTUALLY needed to deal with due to their trade practices, but the EU, Canada, Japan, Mexico? It was all nonsense. What Trump DID do... which I love as someone who's invested heavily in AI in my brokerage account, was lift export restrictions for Nvidia(and AMD) on Saudi Arabia, Qatar... and China. Not sure if that's good for the Country, but it's good for me. I bought QBTS and RGTI for I THINK 77 cents and RGTI for 1.50, but as I said... held for, IDK, 7-8 months and then when Google came out with their Quantum "breakthrough," and it went up, set that stop loss. It was +/-15-20% a day. Again, all speculative(and then I bought SLI, LAC, TTI and several others that were of little value). But when Jensen came out and said we were 20 years away from Quantum being viable and it tanked the sector, my stop losses triggered.] If I had any actual faith in it, I'd have held, but being as they were still operating at a loss and QBTS had just the one large client, I didn't hold. But, can't complain too bad. That was set up for my Sisters kids, so they got a nice head start and they're not even starting school yet. Moved it into SMH, TSM and AMZN. My biggest regret is spending years investing in rental properties and let my Roth sit in index funds. Oh, and Ethereum. That's one I'm investing in heavily right now. Hoping Tom Lee ends up being right about that one.

Yeah... well, I did the Math. After I decided to sell the rental properties I owned a couple years ago, I was 5 trades in stocks that, 5 that I'd invested some money into... away from being a billionaire if I could go and live late '23 to '24 over again! No options. Hindsight often makes us feel stupid. For instance, I bought a few thousand shares of QBTS under 1 dollar. That was for my Nephew, Niece and Nephew(obviously not a 529, I don't like being limited to index funds). And it took off. But it was a speculative play, so I didn't want to risk it just going up on hype due to Google's announcements, I kept setting stop losses. It hit 5, I set it at 4, hit 8, set it at 6. Well, it triggered looong before it topped out at 20(I trigged before it topped out at 10.50 that first leg). In fairness, that wasn't really investing, it was gambling, so I should count it as a win, but I still kick myself for not buying more and holding it. I was pretty lucky though, I put most of what I made in NVDA. Irresponsible, but initially my plan was to wait until I figured out the capital gains... which because I didn't reinvest in another property, I had all that depreciation to repay. Anyway, when it came to "liberation day," I bought mostly AVGO, AMD and then added to AMZN(always add to AMZN... tomorrow I will be putting what cash I have into AMZN. They're STILL in their growing phase. As soon as they ease up a bit on the capex... they're going to grow even more than they have. They're guiding for ~180 BILLION next Quarter. They'll be at 1T in revenue within a couple years. Even this earnings report was strong... they beat expectations, just lower margins for AWS... and they lagged behind Azure and Google Coud which grew 32% and 39%. For the time being, that is good news for NVDA, but long-term, when they slow spending, it's going to take off. The "nobody ever got fired buying IBM," is going to turn into "nobody ever got fired buying AMZN."

I don't think a team can trade more than 250K per trade in IFA bonus room... And I don't think you're getting back a pick and 1.5 in IFA bonus room for Wilken even if it was legal. But you also want to move Frelick to 3B... so you kinda march to the beat of our own Drummer Harold. You KNOW they're not moving Frelick to 3B at this point in the year. If this was ST, MAYBE. Murphy did talk about how shocked we'd be...before injuries hit. Not with the best record in the league. That'd be foolish.

No, he's not. 1-Again, Suarez is a RENTAL. You do get that right? So he has a bad series and he's gone. Kwan is here for 4 post-season runs(OR 3 and they trade him in ~2 years and recoup some of their prospect capital). 2-Suarez strikes out a LOT. Led the league 3 times in the last 3-4 years before this year. What happens in the playoffs? You get more or LESS pitchers with high K rates? Kwan is another guy who doesn't strike out, has very good speed, is hitting for more(but not a ton) of power and is FAR more likely in a tight game to get a runner in than Suarez. The entire argument for Suarez is that despite the poor BA, OBP and only being a rental, he's a bigger upgrade than the Gold Glover who hits, gets on base at a much higher clip because...we're hoping Suarez can win a game with a HR. Kwan impacts the game in all facets positively. 3-You can also move Collins to 2B and Turang to SS, right? You still have VERY good defense with a GG OFer where as Suarez is a poor defender at 3B. Then just the facts based on their performance. Lets compare recent performance;

You're going to have to explain how you arrive at that for me.

Yeah, the TV deals are a huge part of it. The TV deals are the reason the Packers got a check for 435 Million dollars on the first day of the league year. That covers them for the entire season. They can afford to pay their entire roster without doing anything else. As for where they rank outside of the TV money that everyone gets, it's just a guess as everyone keeps it quiet, but what I'm saying is the Packers wouldn't still be in Green Bay most likely without Rooney and Mara in particular agreeing on how the NFL was going to go forward. Revenue sharing and a salary cap. The reason the NFL was pushing them to move to Milwaukee in the 80s(when Milwaukee was a larger city and I would guess close to a top 15 market whereas now it's 30th or 31st). Manfred has made some statements that... infer he wants to keep moving toward something closer to the NFL's structure with TV deals. I don't know exactly how that'd look. I can't imagine how they could get close to what the NFL has, but even if more of the streaming goes through MLB, there's a pathway there to take a bigger chunk of the pie at least over the next 10-20 years and move toward something a BIT more equitable. I don't see a way MLB is ever going to be on a even playing field, but if they can get it where there's "only" a 150M dollar gap between the top payroll and the bottom, that'd be nice. That means a floor and a cap.

I was kinda thinking about that. Even going the other way with it. Ashby starts and Misiorowski comes in. Look to get 3IP out of each. I'd imagine teams would still go with a LHed heavy lineup to start with, unsure when Mis would come in. The problem with that is it'd really stress your BP. So... I may even try and go through this stretch and then sit Misiorowski down for a couple starts. Maybe he gets a tight calf and needs a short DL trip. He's so nasty with that FB and his extension, it's just about being smart with him and not overworking him...which they're doing a good job at.

I'm alright with "none" as an answer, but I'd REALLY like to add one more power arm to the Bullpen. Helsley would be great. I'd say Aroldis Chapman, but he no longer looks to be available. Michael Soroka would be a bit under the radar, but I think he fits best in the pen. And his numbers are a bit inflated due to one blow up(7ER 1IP vs Boston). But, the two best options would be Helsley and David Bednar. This is assuming they don't make a bigger deal with the Twins. (I'm already at a B for the Brewers trades...I don't care if it's the deadline or not, they made two trades...that I did not like at all at the time and brought back Vaughn and Quinn Priester. That's a helluva return in-season. Now they've added Danny Jansen to give Contreras some time off behind the plate and they made these moves without giving up much).

Well... that's certainly true. Ernesto Martinez being penciled in as the heavy side of the platoon would NOT be a real encouraging prospect. He's 26 and in AAA and he's hitting .234/.356 with a paltry .375 SLG. That's really not hitting "very well," when he's on the field. That's a guy who draws walks. If we got rid of Bauers and go with a LHed 1B next year, it'd almost certainly be Black at this point. I feel like you get laser focused on these prospects and... just kinda push no matter how they progress. I'd gladly bring him back as a MiLB FA, but there's no reason to add him to the 40 man.

I mean, you'll have Myers, Patrick stretched out(you may also have Cortes back in the rotation). Ashby and Hall can throw 45-50 pitches pretty easily. It's shaping up to a pretty good situation to handle the 19 games in 18 days(I believe that's what it is). Ashby...I'm thinking is going to be used both in late inning high leverage situations and in a multi inning role in the playoffs. I I still would like a reliever you can slot in ahead of Mears, but I'm not sure who that'd be. In either scenario, I think Henderson to the pen makes a LOT of sense. He's really pretty similar to Freddy Peralta as a young prospect. The FB, not having a full repertoire. Not sure his FB is as good as Peralta's when he came up, but he's got a better #2 pitch. It's a helluva luxury to have.

Because of how the trade worked out? At the time of that trade, Schoop had been worth 2.4 WAR in 85 games. Suarez has been worth 3.4 in 105 games. Schoop was also coming off a much better year(6.1 WAR and 10 WAR the previous 2 years) and at the time of the trade, as a 2B, hit 17 HRs. So he also provided that power. Just as importantly, he was 26 years old, not 34. I think comparing Suarez to Schoop is a lot more accurate than comparing Henderson with Small or the list of pitchers you compared him to.

You mean when the Brewers BEST players had just a year or two before Free Agency and we'd have ONE playoff appearance since 1982? Not pissed, but I WAS NOT a huge fan of the move. I wanted them to go out and trade for Greinke. I thought that was the smarter move. 4 years of team control vs a rental. But AGAIN, very-very different situation to what we have now. How much better are our chances? 1%? 2%? How much does a good starting pitcher you have for the better part of the next SEVEN years help your chances? But lets look at Caleb Durbin vs Suarez as everyone is just kinda taking it for granted this is a MASSIVE upgrade. And I'll agree, it's an upgrade... but how big of one. Pros-Hits for power. That's a big one, nobody is denying that. The 3R HR is king in the post-season. Cons-OPS is ~230 points lower away from AZ than it is in AZ, led the league in Ks 3 years, 27% K rate this year, BB rate in the bottom 15% in MLB, hits for a very low average, very poor OBP. He plays poor defense for a pitching staff that's extremely GB heavy. What usually happens in the post-season? Guys that strike out a lot in the regular season, they tend to strike out at a HIGHER rate in the post-season as teams aren't saving their BPs, they're bringing their SPers back in for a couple innings or throwing their high leverage relievers earlier in the game and for longer. ZERO question he'd be a good addition for the Brewers. That's not in doubt. The question is does he move the neddle enough to sacrifice 14, 21 years ofd team control of other young players? No, they really didn't, but you're comparing two VASTLY different sports. 1-We were desperate to keep Giannis. To use YOUR comparison, this would be like "selling their soul," back when Giannis was JUST at the start of his career(Giannis=Chourio). 2-The Brewers do not have the same concerns. Chourio is locked up for the next 8 years, Misiorowski the next 5 at least(though, they're talking about an extension, something I hope comes to fruition). And they have BIG TIME impact prospects in the minors working their way up and prospects at every level. The ONLY teams better set up for the next 4-5 years are teams like the Dodgers who can keep throwing 400M more a year at their payroll than the Brewers. 3- In the NBA, ONE player makes a HELLUVA lot bigger difference than ONE player in Baseball. It's not even remotely close. I'd ALSO say that the Bucks "sold their sold" for Dame far more than Jrue in a desperate attempt to fix the poor trades they'd already made. Bottom line, the Bucks were an OLD team and their window was closing. The Brewers are a YOUNG team and their window JUST opening this year. Well, he wasn't actually. He'd fallen because unlike Henderson who was both younger AND performed VERY well in AAA and in limited starts with the big league team, Ortiz was both older and back in AA and performing WORSE than he had the year prior. So he was descending where as Henderson was ASCENDING. That's why Ortiz was not the #62 prospect AT THE TIME of the trade. I don't recall if he'd fallen completely out of the top 100, but he regressed whereas Henderson leapt into the rankings due to his performance this year. Clearly two players who's arrows were pointing in VERY different directions. I'm a bit confused as to why you cite Suarez having a better year... though he is. Not sure how much you can count on him to continue to hit at this level when the last 5 years COMBINED he's put up a OPS of .754 and hasn't had a year over an .800 OPS and has mostly hit in AZ this year, but on top of that, you dismiss how much better Henderson has been than Ortiz in the year Ortiz was traded. It's also a far different situation. -The defense wasn't as important with the shifts. -Moose had at least been consistent. You knew what you were going to get. -Yelich had NOT signed an extension at that point. He had two years left, Cain was getting older but still performing well. Similar to 2011, the Brewers appeared to have a much smaller window. Of course, we actually traded Moose for Jorge Lopez, a pitcher who'd struggled badly at the Big League Level and Brett Phillips, a good defensive CFer. This would be more akin to a Carlos Rodriguez and a...Blake Perkins type deal(though Perkins is probably more valuable). Basically two spare parts as Lopez was 25 and Phillips was hitting ~.170 that year. Of course, it'll cost substantially more than that.

Really? The SAME chances as Luis Ortiz or Ethan Small despite having a 60 grade FB and a 60 grade Change and already perfroming well... in an admittedly small sample size, but also dominating in the Minor Leagues? Then lets go the other way. Henderson has "just of a chance of being Taylor Jungmann, Tyler Thornburg Luis Ortiz or Ethan Small," as he does of being Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff OR a dominant reliever such as Josh Hader, Devin Williams, Abner Uribe, etc...etc... Why you're going back and citing VERY different pitchers from a time the Brewers notoriously struggled to develop pitching and randomly comparing guys who... really aren't comparable to Henderson is confusing to me. The guy he's ACTUALLY the most similar to is Freddy Peralta. Peralta came up throwing in the 93-95 range... like Henderson. It had that ride... like Henderson. But Peralta didnt' have a 2nd pitch like Henderson's change. Either way, the guy was dominant in 4 starts and he's performed at every level of the minors and you're bringing up Ethan Small? This is just an odd take. Especially when a guy has already shown he can dominate MLB pitching.

Yeah, here's the thing that you and obviously the MLBPA is missing. They'd make MORE if they had revenue sharing and a cap. NBA mandates 50% of revenue go to the players(with the Bird rules, it goes WELL over 50%, but a minimium of 50%). NFL- Likewise, it's roughly 48.5%, and it balances out as there are floors, but if you understand the NFL Salary Cap, teams can spend 100M more in cash... as teams like the Saints have been doing for a while now... but eventually that evens out, so we'll just go with the CBA mandated MINIMIUM of 48.5% MLB-Players get 38-40% of MLB revenue as there's no cap and little revenue sharing. So players aren't making more. A FEW select players are getting massive deals. Most players in MLB have to wait until their 30-32 to become Free Agents, the better part of 7 seasons before they reach Free Agency. So the Dodgers can sign Ohtani to a 700M deal or the Mets can sign Soto to a 765M dollar deal, but overall, they're earning a smaller percentages of MLB Revenues. The only difference would be... the Dodgers wouldn't be able to stack their rotation with 5-6 30M AAV Starters and the Brewers or...Pirates would be able to afford to keep some of their stars.

Well, there would be no Green Bay Packers without the cap AND the revenue sharing. I think it's 100% accurate to say that. The Green Bay Packers got a check for 432.5M dollars to START the league year. That's before ANY other money is spent. They can compete at that point. It's not imagined and it's not possible without revenue sharing and salary cap. I also don't know what signs there are of demand waning for the NFL. The World Series had it's BEST rating since 2017 and it averaged 15.8M viewers. NFL games that are only available via streaming average 14.8M viewers. Average Sunday Noon Games average 21M. 49M people watched the NFL season opener. But lets compare the Super Bowl to the World Series. The pinnicale of each sport; Sunday’s Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl 59 averaged a combined 41.7 rating and 127.7 million viewers across FOX, Tubi, Telemundo and Fox Deportes, surpassing Chiefs-49ers on CBS, Nickelodeon and Univision last year (123.7M) to rank as the largest Nielsen-estimated audience on record. That's compared to 15.8 for the World Series. Hell, the NFL Super Bowl Generates more money in ONE game than the NBA Finals and the World Series combined. I don't know what the point of this is. Poorly run teams haven't won so... ergo the salary cap hasn't helped them? That's a... kinda silly argument. Take the salary cap away and watch the Giants, Cowboys, Eagles, the Rams... the Bears, they'd just go out and buy the top players. Keeping Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay? You wouldn't be able to. It'd be like baseball. He'd sign his rookie contract and then hit the open market and he'd have made whatever ALL 30 teams would have deemed him worth. I'm kinda at a loss as to how you can look at the NFL's revenue sharing and Salary Cap and argue THAT hasn't contributed to the NFL's popularity. The NFL, the GAME would be dangerous without a salary cap. Imagine having an NFL team spending ~450 MILLION more than another team. How do you think that'd go? The NFL would have had to contract if not for the Mara and Rooney families and it'd be a joke.

Yes, it'll be messy. It'll probably mean a much shorter season in 2026. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. One of the reasons the NFL has just blown past MLB is the inequality. We didn't have the Rooney and Mara's to help ensure the future of the sport...

That makes sense, but we're also in a reality in which it sounds like Giannis is going to be the primary PG this year... so I really don't know what that means for PT or a rotation. Are we going with a big lineup or is this just a way to get Trent and Porter on the floor with Giannis, Turner and I still assume Kuzma? Or Green actually. I'd prefer to see him get more PT. I'm not quite giving up on the Bucks, but I'm also about half checked out. I don't trust Doc... or frankly this organization. They are the antithesis of the Brewers. They don't develop young players. I think Beauchamp had all the tools to be a contributor, I think Jackson Jr is a guy who plays ugly but is effective. I'd almost prefer AJJ over Kuzma. But, that's getting off-topic. I just hope we can shine that turd up enough that we can get him shooting 40%+ with Giannis attacking and maybe we can deal him.

I think people are WAY too down on his MLB potential. I think it's very clearly capped as a utility player, but I think he can be a pretty solid player in that role. A very good defender and a guy who slap the ball around and take some walks. I feel like we have a pretty good grasp of his upside and because of that, I'm good with this. I'd MUCH rather trade someone like him than even Quintana or Anderson, young IFA who aren't even 19 yet.

To your first point, no, it doesn't. Doing more with less doesn't make me want less. And to the second, that's a good piece of leverage, though... I don't think there should be a "cap" on teams who are spending up against the cap. If the Dodgers can charge 5K per ticket and sell 55,000 tickets and make 800M a year on a 250M cap, they should be able to do so... IMO. The spending floor and caps on teams like Pitt are more important to me.

Kuzma... doesn't inspire a ton of confidence(to put it mildly) but I can't imagine we'd have been able to sign Turner and keep Portis without that trade. I don't like that we gave up AJ Johnson, but... that's over with. So if it's now or later in the year, he's a trade chip. It doesn't all have to happen now...right? Kuminga is a really interesting target, but I'd really hold off on dealing that until Giannis extends or doesn't.

Yeah... but that's a paltry sum when talking about signing a couple of HS prospects. They've stayed within the bonus the last two years and that's fine. They're willing to spend the money. I'd be a bit bothered if they were skimping here. Their payroll is already lower... but they've been doing a great job at continuing to add talent to the system. So I'm alright with that. But it doesn't seem like it's a factor. IIRC last year they were pretty much in the same situation. Made very aggressive offers, kids just turned them down.