Patrick425

I coach youth baseball and this seems like a pretty good deal. My only question is one of the conditions is: 2.) Since this is such a great deal, we can only allow one gift card per transaction and only one per person. So, if Aunt, Uncle, Grandma, Grandpa, etc each buy a card can junior use all of them for lessons? Not sure if you know the answer to this Brian. I can also call Frozen Ropes and find out.

Right now they are airing a replay of the Brewers 20-0 romp of the Pirates from early last season on FSN. The description on the Time Warner guide reads "From April 22, 2010...Original air date: 5/24/10" Huh?

Right. $24mil per year vs. $21+ mil per year. So, some Yankee fans are posting that the Phillies are buying the Series? Seriously?!? Pot, say hello to Kettle.

define 'superior' and 'inferior' player, though. a team could save up money to spend extra on a superstar but still wind up with Soriano or Pavano. Kind of my point. The big market teams can afford to make a superstar mistake and still have 9/10ths or 8/10ths of their payroll paid to players who are earning their pay. Or, they can always prey on the small market teams at the trade deadline that are looking to cut payroll. if you threw me $20M per year i could care less if people complained that my team wasn't competitive. This reminds me of the Rob Dibble argument. Whenever small market and big market inequities are brought up to him by caller to XM radio, he complains that the small market teams are not using their revenue sharing money wisely or are "pocketing it". A) How does he know...maybe they are investing it in the farm system. B) So, if Pittsburgh has a normal payroll of $50 million and they add $20 million to that, does that mean they can realistically compete with the Yankees and Red Sox when it comes to the Lee's, Sabathias, and Gonzalezes of the baseball world? It's like I'm sitting at a poker table with $200 and all the other players have thousands and someone gives me another $100 and says "Here you go, does that help?" this is why i'm rooting for the Yankees to win 10 World Series' in a row (provided the Brewers don't get there). then the fans and even the players will finally get fed up of playing in a corrupt system and demand some changes. Yes, unfortunately, I think this is what is going to have to happen. In the mean time people will point to Tampa Bay and Colorodo and say "see?, they did it." Yeah, Colorodo did it. They mortgaged the farm for one or two years of sucess and then will spend the next 5-10 year rebuilding in hopes for another miracle. Or, as we are seeing in TB, they spent many years cultivating and building a farm system until the players got past the arby years and took off for greener pastures. what's sad is that if any change in the system were to be made, the bottom-level players would most likely all get a big bump in pay. for all they have to deal with, just making one season of the Major Leagues deserves a heck of a lot more money than $350,000. Not sure I understand. This statement seems contridictory. "sad that .....bottom-level players will get a big bump" vs. "they deserve a lot more than $350,000". Is the latter part meant to be sarcastic?

Well, they can continue to overpay the "non-inferior" players, but there is a huge difference between paying 1/5th of your payroll to one player and paying 1/10th of your payroll to one player. If you can't see the inequities this causes between the big and small market clubs, I'm not sure what to say.

Well, you kind of made my point with KC. That's pretty much what I'm arguing - although with the international FAs, they are still going to get outbid by the larger mkt teams. You are correct, there is not a "magical number" and you brought up two very valid examples. However, doesn't it just make sense that a team with a $200 million payroll is more likely to spend $20+ million on a player than a team with a a payroll of $100 million? Yes, a team with < $100 million dollar payroll could spend $20 million on one player, but as far as I know it has not happened yet (possibly Twins -Mauer? - but I think thier payroll may go above $100 mil this year). The reason it hasn't happened is because it does not make a lot of fiscal sense. Think about it. A car salesman is trying to sell a $60,000 luxury vehicle. He has 10 people to try to sell to that have a collective salary of $700,000. If you give him the option of 10 people with an equal salary of $70,000 or the option where 3 are making about $130,000 and other 7 are making about $45,000, don't you think he would have a better shot with the second option? Do you have the ablilty or willingness to buy the same things a person making 2 or 3 times as much as you does? Yes, having a new Mercedes would be nice and would be more reliable vs. a car that cost's $15,000 or less, but if it means you have to move to a studio apartment and live on mac & cheese, does it make a lot of sense?

In a vacuum this statement is true, but when acquiring that talent (one player) takes up 20% of your payroll, then I don't think that's a valid statement. It's like putting a hood ornament on a 78' Gremlin. Take a look at the KC. They signed Gil Meche to a 5 year/ $55 million contract 4 years ago. That's only $11 million/yr, but next year he will be making $13.5 million which is close to 18% of their total payroll. Given his injuries and performance over the last 2 seasons he's basically untradable and creating a big hole in their roster. So, now they are looking to dump the contract of Grienke, who is a very serviceable pitcher. So, my guess is that you would say that Gil Meche was a stupid signing. They should have spent more (closer to $20mil) on a better talented player. Ok, let's say they went out that year and signed Alfonzo Soriano (who was also a FA that year) to an 8 year $136 mil deal ($17mil/year). Would this have been better? Would KC be contenders with Soriano and the rest of their roster?

The difference between the Brewers offering $20mil/yr and the Yankees, Boston, etc is that $20 mil is about 1/4 of their total payroll. If this player had a 6-7 year contract (which many of these guys seem to be getting at minimum), and he got injured that would kill them. This is not true for the big market teams that can go out at the trade deadline and pick up a big contract that a small market team is trying to dump. See above. Perhaps every team could offer a $20million contract. Heck they could afford a $50 milliion/yr contract if they really wanted to. But considering that $20mil would be 1/5 of their payroll, I think many would soon realize (about 2 or 3 years into that contract) that it's not the smartest of moves. I think there is no doubt, under the scenario you described (every team basically having the same amount of money to spend - $100 mil), that the top paychecks would decrease. How many current teams with payrolls of $100 million or less are paying anyone on the roster $20milliion or more? I really don't know the answer to this, but I'm guessing the answer is probably 0.

Do you honestly think the players would be open to full revenue sharing or a salary cap? Sheets and Johnson were each signed for about $10mil/yr. This seems to be about the limit for the small market clubs (see Suppan, Wolf, etc). The players know that with complete revenue sharing, there may be no club that can afford the $20+ million per year multi-year contracts. God forbid that those should go away even though this would benefit the lower tiered players. The current system in place benefits the mega-star players. The union has no concern for parity among teams...they just want their big paychecks. I'm not necessarily saying the players as a whole should make less than what they do now (although I would have nothing against that, since they have made no investment). I'm saying the money should be spread among teams and players more evenly with more teams getting the opportunity to get in on the FA sweepstakes.

I think some owners are willing participants. The ones that can afford to be. Mainly the big market teams. This is why I said that Steinbrenner should never get a plaque. If the other owners decided they have had enough and wanted to have a vote for full revenue sharing (including TV contracts) and a Salary Cap, it wouldn't matter because even with a majority of owners in favor of it they would have to get approval from the players union, which would never happen. That's what I mean when I say the players (employees) are calling the shots.

Comparing baseball players of any era to slaves is a little over the top. They were getting paid to play a game. That's a little different that being a slave. The problem now is that the players run the game. They call the shots. Any change that the owners want to make, they have to go through the players union...drug testing, revenue sharing, salary caps, wild card changes, scheduling, etc. How much money have the players invested in the game? If you are the one investing the money, you should be the one calling the shots (without having to get permission from your employees) and taking the majority of the profits. I am convinced that baseball will eventually implode. I believe George Will wrote an article about this several years ago.

To be completely honest I don't really follow the NBA that closely, but it also seems to be a sport that has the same teams win every year and they find loopholes to getting around the salary cap (if I'm not mistaken). I was referring to Miami when I made that comment. Are there many other NBA teams that could have done that? I could not agree more. Same with Steinbrenner.

If it's true, I don't know how Pavano can possibly think he deserves the same contract as Lilly. I would rather see the Brewers bring back Cappy than sign this guy.

Yeah, you never see an NBA team that can load up with that much talent.

It just doesn't sound like there is a ton of interest in Fielder from other clubs at this point. Since the Brewers just made a "win now" trade, I think it would make more sense to start the season with Fielder on the roster and see how things go. If they had to, I think they could trade him at the trade deadline and not get much less in return than what they would get if they traded him now.

The Montreal Expos

Yeah, I would rather just keep Fielder for 2011 if that rumor is true and represents the kind of offers they are getting.

I have seen several posts on BF about the possiblity of trading McGehee. Who plays third then? Gamel? Yuck....not a big fan of Gamel.

Perhaps Lawrie will be in the top 10 this year, but he's not one of those "can't miss" prospects. I'm not saying the "can't miss" label is always correct, but from a trading chip standpoint it doesn't hurt. Fielder and Weeks were basically in the same class as Strasburg. Most fans on other teams knew who they were when they were in the minors and their MLB debut was highly anticipated. Lawrie is just not in that same class. You have to give to get and Lawrie was a fair price to pay for another team's #1 pitcher, even if he will probably be #2 on our staff.

Ok, woke up this morning, read the paper and saw this trade for the first time. At first I thought it was the PTBNL for Villaneueva and I couldn't believe it. Then I realized it was a separate trade involving Lawrie and I'm still pretty happy about it. Then I logged on to BF.net and saw there was already a 12 page thread on this deal. I actually took the time to read just about every post. My favorite one and the one that describes how I feel the most is probably this one from RobDeer45: As the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know. Some people are making all sorts of assumptions about what pitchers they would rather have or that they could have gotten more for Lawrie, etc. How do you know? Melvin had to get starting pitching. This deal came up and he could either pass it up in hopes of getting something better down the road or take it. If he passed it up and the "better" deal never came, now he would be left to overpaying for a FA like Pavano, which he still may do (I really, really hope not). Someone also posted about how fans from one team always seem to undervalue the prospects of another team. I think it's also true that fans generally overvalue prospects on their own teams. Lawrie is a good prospect, but not a "get a #1 pitcher in return" type prospect. If this was 6 or 7 years ago and it was Weeks or Fielder for Marcum, I would have been more concerned. Fielder and Weeks were consistantly in the top 10 (even top 5) listed prospects on many different lists. Lawrie is good, but he's not that type of prospect. Lastly, the people breaking down and analyzing Marcum's mechanics based on one still photo should quit their day jobs and see if they can get a job as a scout or pitching coach on some team.

At the risk of being permenently banned from brewerfan.net, I have never been a huge fan of the FIP stats. They are based on the premise that pitchers do not have control of balls that are hit in play. How is a hard hit ball in the gap any different than a ball that is elevated and clears the fence? Hard hit balls that don't clear the fence often fall in for singles, doubles, and triples. Balls that are hit hard are at least partially due to the pitch that was made (of which the pitcher has control). So, if a pitcher gets battered around for 5 or 6 runs but doesn't give up any HRs or Walks, it's considered a good outing? That does not make a whole lot of sense to me. It has been shown that good pitchers do have control over balls in play. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/printarticle/dips-again/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/using-fip-to-evaluate-pitchers-i-wouldnt/

He did? He had a 5.1 ERA.

I agree. I'd much rather see guys like Gamel and McGehee traded.You have to give to get. McGehee might net some good talent, but I don't think Gamel would bring much in return. It's fairly clear that the Brewers are not going to net a #1 or #2 starter in free agency. They are going to have to trade something of value away to get that. The Fielder situation is not looking great. Does not seem to be a ton of interest and I not sure that a team is going to offer a #1/#2 for him. As good of propects as Lawrie, Odorizzi, Jeffress, Roders, and Rivas are, I will always take top proven MLB talent over a prospect that only promisses to be good some day at the MLB level. Of course some of this depends on the contract of the player that is being received, but I think people get way too attached to "can't miss" prospects.

I was just going to post something about how I have not been able to access the home page for the past month, so I'm happy to see this thread and that I'm not the only one. That is also how I normally get to the fan forum (now I just have a link in my favorites that takes me directly there). How can I access the player salary page? That is one of my favorite features on Brewerfan.net. There is no link to it at the top of the forums page and, as stated, I can not get to the home page.

I don't understand how you can say "No doubt"? Based on what...last year? He could also pitch like he did in 2008 or 2009 or one of his several other crappy years. Perhaps "injury prone" is a little strong. I emphaize little. He pitched a total of 145.67 innings from 2005 through 2008. He entirely missed 2006. Yes, he has been healthy for the last 2 years. I'm not sure that's enough to just ignore the 4 years prior to that. I'm not sure why any team would want this guy, regardless of the contract. I would think that there would be some AAA pitcher that could do the same thing for much less.