adambr2

No, absolutely not. That's literally a 50M a year contract in new money. Not only is that blowing away the richest previous contract in MLB history but you're doing it years before he even hits free agency when he has no leverage at all. No. It's on average $30m a year contract because you spread it out over the 5 years and you gain an additional 2 years of prime years Yelich. That's not how it works. Baseball contracts are guaranteed and not renegotiable. The rate that Yelich is already signed for is irrelevant in what you give him on an extension. You don't just give a guy 150M more guaranteed over 3 years in new money 3 years before he's even a free agent to compensate for a lower market deal and make it look more reasonable when you spread it out. It's 50M a year in new money. Which is way over the top regardless of how you want to redistribute it. If you're making an offer like that you're offering something like 3/90 at the very most, which is around market value and you're hoping he will take that on the basis of offering shorter years for security now. Not 3/150 and tacking on the already contracted money to dress up the total.

Because losing that big of an asset for nothing at all is devastating to the near future after he does leave, particularly for a small market team. This is a hope strategy and there's not a single successful business on earth that runs on a continuous hope strategy. We lost Fielder, and what would that have gotten us at peak? The infamous, Daniel Hudson? Maybe I'm in the minority, but if a team can compete for a playoff berth, a team can win it all. Some here seem to have forgotten how hard it is just to get in. As long as we have a chance to get in with Yelich on the team, I'm going to trust my fellow Harvard alum over the disagreeing fanbase here and run with it. #1, making sure you get a king's ransom for Yelich isn't a "hope strategy" any more than going all in on one year is a "hope strategy." #2, Yelich is worth way, way more than what Prince was worth at midseason 2010 when we were shopping him. #3, I am not saying you absolutely have to trade Yelich in these next 3 years. If they want to go after it these next 3 years, then that's great. But if you're going to go that route, you have to do everything you can to maximize the talent around Yelich and make sure you have something to show for this era. You can't just waltz through three .500 seasons and tip your cap and say goodbye.

No, absolutely not. That's literally a 50M a year contract in new money. Not only is that blowing away the richest previous contract in MLB history but you're doing it years before he even hits free agency when he has no leverage at all.

Because losing that big of an asset for nothing at all is devastating to the near future after he does leave, particularly for a small market team.

The worst part about all the bad decisions that they've made this year is that they have very frequently doubled down on them.

Oh good, Saladino is starting.

Yes, if the Brewers ever were to make a big commitment to a player, Yelich is the type of player to do it with. He has major fan appeal and doing so would be a big win with the fan base, regardless of his production declines in his mid-thirties. If we are paying him 35M a year to be mediocre in his mid 30s that will not be a big win. That will be crippling. Braun had every bit of the same appeal in 2011 as Yelich has now.

No argument from me on Saladino, Stache. He's absolutely useless. If they aren't willing to send him down when he sucks, there was no point in dumping Perez in the first place because Saladino is a far less useful version of Perez. The whole benefit to rostering Saladino over Perez is that if he sucked, you could option him. Guess what, Mr. Stearns, Saladino sucks. But they are bound and determined to roster him because they want a utility man that can play the OF. So you've got basically one decent bench guy in Gamel. When Aguilar plays, your righty bench options are Saladino and Pina, so you may as well not have anyone. You've got 2 spots dedicated to first base for 2 guys who can't play anywhere else, at least not effectively. The whole roster construction of this team is just a mess. They overloaded on lefties and frequently end up in late inning situations against a LOOGY when they have to choose between a big platoon disadvantage or a terrible righty bat.

Whether or not you choose to accept that the team overperformed last year or is underperforming this year has no bearing on what is actually the case. The reality is almost certainly that both are true. Yes, the team is underperforming, but do you really think the exact same team from 2018 wins 96 games again if they had to start again from Day 1? Most likely, there was some luck there, too. Also, objecting to acquiring big time starting pitching prospects on the basis of the organization's past failures to develop starters, isn't fair. You can't let that cloud your judgment, we still have to try to develop starting pitching. Woodruff is coming along nicely. As far as your 3rd paragraph, I really don't know. All I know is that with all the big names you listed on this team, we are nonetheless a .500, very average ballclub with little realistic aspirations of playing deep into October. I'm not suggesting a full blowup at this point. But if you can't compete this year, you have to look at the future, particularly with your rentals. And if you're not competing after 2020, your Yelich window is small. You can't lose him for nothing with nothing to show for it. I do completely agree it's been a sub par last 8 months for the front office. Don't get me wrong, I still think we have a very good GM, but I think a lot of us, myself included, have put David Stearns on a little bit of a pedestal and labeled him as a young genius. I think this season has been a little bit a wakeup call for us on that and we see he's a smart guy who makes mistakes just like everyone else. I agree they put too much faith in Nelson. With that said, the big name acquisitions this offseason, Moustakas, Grandal, have been successful acquisitions. Hiura has been everything we hoped. So it's a little frustrating to see us being where we are in spite of all that. But Gio Gonzalez coming back doesn't really move the needle right now. Starting pitching, for the most part, has been fine lately. We get our 5 innings out of them with a chance to win the game. We're not losing these games because of starting pitching, we're losing these games because our bullpen has one reliable arm, and we don't get timely hitting. Gio Gonzalez does not come in and change any of those things. He's just another guy who will come in and give you 5 innings and 2 runs, and that's fine. But it doesn't really fix anything on this team. If we had another Brandon Woodruff type arm who could go 7-8 innings and shorten a game, that moves the needle. But Gio doesn't change much.

Can we please stop with the silly Cubs watch already? They're not even the only team in the Central we're looking up at, and there will be more if this play continues. The Cubs can lose every game the rest of the season and it is of no benefit to us if we continue to play like we have for the last 6 weeks.

Unfortunately I just don't think a Yelich extension makes sense for either side. You'd have to get him to accept something like 3 year/$75M to be logical which he is just not going to do. It's going to end up being a bad deal. Right now, 2020 is your window. I think we look to reload for next year. We should have Knebel coming back at some point in 2020 and hopefully we can add a few useful pieces and figure out what has gone wrong this season. If we don't look like contenders in 2020 and we're not prepared to go on a big name FA spending spree, you have to consider trading Yelich at that time. With 2 years left of control you can single handedly turn our farm system from a bad one to a top 5-7 system overnight, and at that point you're rebuilding anyway. You cannot just do nothing and let Yelich walk for a comp pick. You're either all in on '21 and '22 or you're rebuilding.

Heck, we may be a losing team by the end of this series, and we've still got people thinking we should buy?

Remember watching this team last year and every move they made it felt like it just couldn't go wrong? This year feels like the complete opposite. Nelson, sticking with Burnes, Hiura, Shaw, Saladino, the last spot in the pen, etc. etc, it just feels like every move they make is the wrong one.

If their plan really was for Saladino to come up and share playing time with Arcia at SS, that was a pretty stupid plan. Just bring Dubon back up for crying out loud. It's not like you ever need Saladino/Dubon to cover the corner IF spots anyway.

Guerra has got to have the best luck of any pitcher in the majors. He constantly gets away with mistakes, whereas Corbin Burnes gets hammered every time if he misses his spot by a half inch.

The pitching stinks, you were wrong, just own it and move on, rather than this constant rationalization to excuse every pitcher on the staff that you like from blame.

Yeah Braun really has to open this inning with a catch on that Albies hit, and now that opened it up.

Stearns isn’t selling because he’s not an idiot like some on here 3 games over .500!!! Sell everything!! 3 games over .500? They're about to be 1 over.

I have to say that 300 pound bat sure did the job that time.

This team just finds a way to lose. Every time.

Or they're just a better baseball team. What is the lucky part about scoring off Castillo? The Cubs aren't even on my mind anymore. We're getting right on the edge of having a losing record.

Seems about right to me.

Instead of a new stance, maybe Braun shouldn't use a 300 pound bat.

Pitch 3 to Darby was Strike 3. It wasn't even close to missing. 2 batters in and we're already dealing with this crap.

There were two major differences between Grandal and Lucroy both in Lucroy's favor. Lucroy was under control for 1.5 seasons on a far below market value contract. Grandal is strictly a rental on a market value contract. Not saying that Grandal couldn't fetch something decent but those things added a lot of value to Lucroy in a trade, plus the fact that we included our closer at the time (Jeffress) in the deal. So I just wouldn't expect anything close to that return.