Matt Breen

I don't know if Mark A. will ever play for the future. He's shown he'll spend on aging veterans to plug holes rather than go into rebuild mode. If A-Ram had left, I bet we would have done something like traded for a guy like Casey McGehee or Chris Johnson.

Here's a look at long term free agent contracts for players who actually reached FA from 2007-12. 39 players signed contracts for 4 or more years. Here's the average cost per WAR that these players have produced (keep in mind that Fangraphs pegs 1.0 WAR as worth $7 million): 6 players - Negative WAR - can't even calculate their value! 12 players - $10M+ per WAR 4 players - $8.0-9.9M per WAR 7 players - $6.0-7.9M per WAR 7 players - $4.0-5.9M per WAR 3 players - $3.9M or lower per WAR - The average yearly WAR for each of these players was 1.9 - The average yearly salary for each player was $14.9M - 11 players have averaged 3.0 WAR a year or better (Adrian Beltre is the best FA - 22.7 WAR in four years - 5.7 average) In the end, teams are paying roughly $15M a year for these guys to produce 1.9 WAR annually. It's not a terrible return, but it's not great either. As you would expect, a lot of the value is often produced early in the contracts, with diminishing returns as the player ages. Please note that 13 of these contracts still are in process. While there's a chance some players improve, the odds are that they will only get worse (example, A-Rod has averaged 3.4 WAR over the length of his deal. It's unlikely that improves over the next three years). Doesn't mean they can't get better (Prince, for instance, missed most of last year, so he could easily improve), but for most of them, a decline is more likely. Obviously, I didn't factor in years and money that haven't occurred. So if a player was four years into a 5-year contract for $50 million, I calculated it at 4-years and $40M. I used Fangraphs for WAR. Also, I only used players who actually hit free agency (this list is easy to find). Finding the contracts of all the players extended by their teams prior to FA is difficult. Final note, any voiding contracts, like Sabathia's, I just ignored. Figuring out how to calculate that was just not in the cards.

The problem is that can't expect a player to perform at a high level into his mid-30s (especially when he's age 27, when Braun signed his extension). I realize that the team can make some guesses about a player's long term health, but that far out is pretty dicey. I don't care how hard a player works, how healthy he's been up through his age 26 season, it's simply a risk to predict that. The prudent thing would have been for Milwaukee to wait a couple of years before extending Ryan. However, I understand why they did it. If he had hit 30-40 HR and had a .300 BA in 2013 and 2014, he'd be looking at $25-30M a year when he hit FA after this season. The club saw a chance to lock up a hall of fame type player. The risk was they had to do it really early, meaning there was several years where something could go wrong (which happened). Many players do very well into their mid-30s (Adrian Beltre or Matt Holliday, for example). But for everyone of these guys, there's three or four others that falter for a variety of reasons.

We have 3 HR and a .223 BA. We'll get better. How much better...who knows. But we'll get better.

I agree that A-Ram is tough to read. He was bad last year after the all-star break (as John Briggs is pointing out). But he had hammy issues, spent some time on the DL. Also, he's historically a slow starter (in 2012, the year he finished with a .900 OPS, he had a .645 OPS in April). I honestly don't know if A-Ram is 'done'. I've watched maybe 1.5 total games this year, so I can't really say much about how he's looked so far (when I did see him he showed a nice swing - but we're talking a couple of ABs). The numbers are bad, but 27 ABs don't make a season. I don't think anyone will be shocked if he is 'done', but I won't be surprised if he finds his stroke. Maybe some of the power will be gone, but a decent BA and some modest slugging numbers aren't out of the question.

The club has already said he'll be 'stateside' this year. So like you say, hardly any chance he goes to DSL.

"What Many Brewers Fans May Think, But Dare Not Say (Yet)" I'll dare to say it.... Voldemort

You gotta hope we can have some big hits on guys like this. Other than Lucroy, Milwaukee hasn't developed an all-star type player for about a decade. I hope the club continues to be aggressive in the draft (and international arena). We need to keep getting guys with big upside. Sure there's a risk, but the payoff is a franchise player.

One 'good' thing about tanking is getting top 10 (and top 5) draft picks. History has shown that the higher the pick, the better chance of landing an impact player. Taking a 15 year span - 1996-2010 - here's the number of players who have produced 10+ WAR for their career according to Baseball Reference: 1-10 picks: 45 11-20 picks: 30 21-30 picks: 20 Supplemental picks: 13 It goes to show how hard it is to draft quality players. Out of 150 top 10 picks, less than 1/3 have produced 10 or more WAR (although many players still have the chance to accomplish this). Some of our best players over the last 10-15 years - Fielder, Braun, Weeks and Sheets - were all Top 10 picks. Again, you still have to nail the picks. And you have to find guys in other ways. I think St. Louis has done that really well. They rarely have top picks, but have succeeded (as you said, by having a consistent approach to drafting and developing guys).

When you want to go to the Colorado Springs Gazette, open a new private window in your browser (Chrome calls it 'incognito browsing', Internet Explorer calls it 'InPrivate Browsing', and Firefox simply calls it 'private browsing'). Again, do this in a new browser window. Then go to the Gazette page, get the info you want, then close the browser window. The private browsing means that your page views won't be tracked by anyone, which means that the Gazette page won't remember you the next time you return. This is assuming that the Gazette page tracks your visits using cookies (you can also go into your browser settings and clear your cookies - but some people aren't comfortable doing that).

Three games. 159 more. I'm not ready to pass any judgements quite yet. Too much left for that. There's still some quality talent on this club. As we've said, there's a lot of questions as well, but three games is too early to answer those questions.

I think there's a lot of reasons to be skeptical of Chicago, but they look to be trending in a positive direction. They won 73 games last year, but they have made a lot off season moves, including adding Lester, Fowler and Montero. They will have a full season of Solar, and waiting in the wings is Bryant. Personally, I think that because of the additions the club made during the offseason, plus the expected maturation of younger players, I see them as a .500ish team. But I won't be shocked if they win less than that. Young players are unpredictable - even highly touted ones. Still, I think it will take several major issues to arise for the team win only 67 games. Not impossible, but unlikely.

You're basically saying the difference between things going badly and "pretty epic tanking" is 4-6 games. That's pretty ridiculous and it shows that the writer isn't as far off as some seem to think he is. I think that if you bring back pretty much the same team as last year, the record won't change that much. To play the same guys and lose 15 more games than the year before is pretty horrible. Perhaps not an epic collapse (Texas, after all, lost something like 20-25 more games than in 2013), but still pretty awful.

How about looking at what the team would be if we only had guys we drafted or signed as amateur free agents: C - Lucroy C - Carlos Corporan 1B - Fielder 2B - Scooter, Weeks SS - Hardy, Escobar 3B - Lawrie 1B/3B - Jason Rogers 1B/OF - Hart OF - Braun, Brantley, Cain, Tony Gwynn, Schafer, Khris Davis SP - Gallardo SP - Peralta SP - Nelson SP - Fiers SP - Odorizzi SP/RP - Thornburg RP - Wooten RP - Jeffress RP - Wilhelmsen RP - Mike Adams RP - Lucas Luetge RP - Dana Eveland RP - Manny Parra RP - Craig Breslow The offense would be fine, but the rotation is average, while relievers are weak. Perhaps I missed someone. I didn't include players we drafted, but did not sign (so no Hunter Pence). This roster (which is around 30 players) would command around $100-105 million this year in salaries. Would it be better than the current club?

Unless we have injuries like Texas had last year - or a fire sale - I don't think we will drop to as few as 67 wins. I believe this to be an average team. I figure around 81-81 (average!). If things go well, you win 5-10 more games. If things go badly, you lose 5-10 more games. So if we really bottomed out, I could see us in the lower 70s for wins. If you have a Rangers-style collapse, 67 wins is possible. But that's a pretty epic tanking. There's little margin for error for Milwaukee. A lot of things need to go right to win. This is how this team has been built for the last few years.

Smoked by Kyle Kendrick. That's depressing. 122 total pitches. No walks. We have so many guys that just swing at crap, it worries me.

A lot of guys seem to be swinging for the fences. Maybe just too keyed up.

A-Ram may not have the power he used to, but he still has a pretty swing.

Lind saved Scooter's butt. Nice job.

Where's Devin Williams going to?

He could also be an option as a RH at 1B Quentin has never played 1B in his entire professional career. What makes him an option at 1B? Reportedly the Padres worked Quentin at 1B - and the results were not good. He's really a DH now. His OF defense is Adam Dunnesque.

I love the Club level. Infield Club is best. Fewer people, shorter lines. Food services your seat. In the shade. Short rows mean less people climbing over you. You pay more, but I like to relax and enjoy the game. I'm not a fan of left field side seats in afternoon games. If it's sunny, you can really get baked.

This was a great read - detail that you just don't normally get.

I'm kind of in this boat. I honestly don't really know that much about D'Vo or guys like Matt Long - maybe Long or whomever really is a lot better - but I kind of like giving the guys we draft and develop a little longer leash. I also like players who can play CF really well. Seems like D'Vo could handle that. It might have made him a backup candidate in a year or two at the big league level. Ultimately, it's not a big deal, but it's tough giving up on players you have been following for many years.

You know we're desperate for the regular season to start when a Hunter Morris thread gets more than one page of comments.