Brewers owner Mark Attanasio indicated that his scuffling club is looking at all options, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. “Over 11 years, I’ve made some pretty tough decisions and I’m ready to make them again,” said Attanasio. “Whether it’s remodel, retool, rebuild, whatever it takes to bring winning baseball to Milwaukee is what I’m going to do. The organization always comes first to me and for everybody.” While the owner says that all members of the organization must be held accountable, he expressed confidence in GM Doug Melvin — though he also declined to address Melvin’s contract situation.
Milwaukee will face many tough questions over the coming months, and here are a few more notes on their current situation and future outlook:
- The Brewers are telling other clubs that injured catcher Jonathan Lucroy is not available via trade, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports on Twitter. It is early, of course, and that stance could presumably always change with the right offer, but Milwaukee is presumably less than thrilled with the prospect of parting with perhaps its highest-value asset. The very same thing that makes Lucroy so appealing to the rest of the league — his top-level offensive and defensive production in an up-the-middle position at a bargain rate for multiple years — also make him an obvious player to build around in either a go-for-it or reloading scenario. Assuming his club option is picked up, the 28-year-old will earn just $12.25MM from the start of this season through 2017.
- Whatever they may be saying in talks, the Brewers should strongly consider dealing Lucroy, in the opinion of Dave Cameron of Fangraphs. That assessment is due in part to the fact that Lucroy’s cheap contract opens up a wide array of possible trade partners, to say nothing of the dearth of other available top-end options at the catching position. Of course, it bears noting that Lucroy is off to a rough start to the year (.133/.216/.178 in 51 plate appearances) and will be sidelined for another few weeks as he rehabs a broken toe. And Martin Maldonado, his quality backup, has also failed to deliver much offensively thus far in 2015.
- J.P. Breen of Baseball Prospectus examines Ryan Braun’s lack of productivity, noting that Braun’s ability to handle pitches on the inner third of the plate has dramatically decreased over the past two seasons. That was understandable in 2014, Breen points out, due to a devastating nerve issue in Braun’s thumb that made it difficult for him to even shake hands with another person, let alone play baseball. Braun began starting his swing early in an effort to keep up with fastballs that he could once handle, leaving him susceptible to breaking pitches away. Breen wonders if Braun may still be working to correct some of those bad habits he developed last year. Though he’s still whiffing on inside pitches, Braun has excellent exit velocity and hard-contact numbers, indicating that if he can close the hole in his swing, he could return to his status as a premier threat. However, as Breen concludes, any significant dip in production would mean that Braun likely won’t live up to his five-year, $105MM extension — a contract that begun only this season.
Brewers, other than Braun are not locked into a lot of LT deals that will tie their hands, assuming Garza is able to be moved. The K-Rod deal looks unnecessary, but as long as he is pitching well, that shouldn’t be a roadblock.
With the Brewers thin farm system, trading Lucroy and Gomez would seem to be the key to acquiring fresh, young talent. Perhaps, they should also be taking to Bosox and LAD to see if some mutually beneficial arrangement could be made to get a surplus player at a deep discount, and possibly a bridge to next contending season.
It is tough to try to compare your numbers while taking performance enhancing drugs to when you are off the juice. That is the story of Ryan Braun.
That is basically the story of MLB, at this time.
Meanwhile, Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta
Pirates and Brewers could match up really well on a Lucroy trade. Obviously same division and all that, but I could see a trade working really well for both sides.
How would it work out well for the Brewers? They probably won’t give up Glasnow. What’s the match?
Is this the soonest we’ve ever seen a team with legit talent on it’s roster to push the panic button and start talking trades? These rumblings started before the calendar turned to May and I can’t remember a team that had this many quality players on the roster and was ready to start dumping parts and pieces to retool everything. We’ve seen it from garbage teams but that’s a different story. Somebody’s getting some bargains if the Brewers are on the other end of the line — this reeks of owner desperation and panic.
The only star players on the Brewers are Gomez and Lucroy. Segura is a nice SS, and that is about it. The rest of the team isn’t very good. The bullpen isn’t great, the rotation isn’t that good, and their offence centres around the above three guys due to other players’ underperformance. I think they are simply letting other teams know that they are willing to listen on their players. I don’t think they’ll act too rashly especially with regards to Gomez, Lucroy, and Segura.
Oh well , without the Juice just an Average MLB Player.