The beautiful thing about life is that the older you get, the more you learn. The same goes for baseball. The longer you are in the game, the more you understand the intricacies of it. The Milwaukee Brewers have decided to turn that on its ear and suggest that a 30-year-old fellow will be the new guru of the organization and build it into a winner.
Attanasio is frugal. At least that is the world we will go with.
Winning is the key.
Brewers have two people in their entire organization who have World Series rings and who have been a part of a winning tradition. Two.
And the new GM does not have that pedigree.
Someone told me this past week that he is convinced that he was a better lawyer at 40 than he was at 30. Point, the longer you work at a job, the more knowledge you have to show success. In other words, the more you know, the better you become.
The Milwaukee Brewers will reduce their payroll this coming season. They will try everything within their power to relieve themselves of Matt Garza’s contract. Kids will be coming up to see if they can grab lightening…at a price. The starting rotation of Nelson, Peralta, Jungmann and Davies will have its ups and downs as collectively they advance in their ‘baseball training program’ while in the Major Leagues. They should trade Adam Lind to reduce their payroll some more and move Jonathan Lucroy to first to give him extra life and avoid further concussions. Lind has gone virtually injury free this season while hitting very well. The Brewers will never have a better time to trade him for value. Khris Davis should move from left to second base because he has the poorest throwing arm for an outfielder in the major leagues. Your daughter can throw better than this guy. But he can hit and hit with power. Putting him at second will give him a chance to be the most powerful second baseman since Cano. Jean Segura should remain at shortstop as Orlando Arcia develops his hitting in the minors, this coming season in Colorado Springs. Segura will be traded next September to allow the advancement of the phenom. Rogers should be permanently moved to third if he can learn to throw. He can hit and hit and hit and he has a chest big enough to knock balls down bruise after bruise. He just can’t throw to first. Domingo Santana should move to left as Shane Peterson will move back into center. He was very good in that position although many said he was a natural corner outfielder. Ryan Braun, one of the league’s best and the secret comeback player of the year, will remain in right field. After all, Ryan Braun is THE most valuable player for the Milwaukee Brewers. Without him there is no pop in the lineup who can be counted on to drive in runs. With him they have a chance to win the game.
As for moves into the future by the new GM, the best thing he can do is avoid talking to Melvin. That is because the message was loud and clear at his opening press conference. When asked, Attanasio stated that the hire of Stearns was the second most difficult move he had to make in his years as the owner, the other being the Greinke trade with Kansas City. The take away from this is that he listened to his hand-picked GM (Melvin) following his buying of the team from Selig, to trade for Greinke and trade away the future of the organization which resulted in the loss of two future All-Stars. By mentioning this, it is clear Attanasio has been burning from this decision for some time. The exclamation on this subject was made by Stearns when he said ‘Building an organization from the farm system is the way to go. You cannot build a winning baseball team through free agent trades.”! So, while platitudes flow, there should be an avoidance to talk to Melvin at all costs. He will now be put into Selig’s dungeon, the place where he sent the most brilliant of all GMs in the history of the Brewers, Harry Dalton. Selig barely talked to Harry for over a year Dalton was paid to be a consultant.
So what have we learned? Attanasio is frugal. He has brought in a newbie with no track record of winning to be his head of baseball operations under the guise that ‘baseball analytics’ are the way to go. He also mentioned the breadth of Stearns background in ‘all-aspects’ of the front office. Think about that. What breadth of knowledge can anyone pick up in a few years at the age of 30? Obviously, hiring Stearns was cheaper than an extension of Melvin’s contract. Money saved.
The Milwaukee Brewers have no legacy of winning. They won one pennant forty some years ago. That’s it. Once.
The Milwaukee Brewers have only two guys with a winning baseball tradition in their entire organization. Two guys.
The Milwaukee Brewers fans will come out because there are two things that drive provincial Milwaukee: FREE and HOPE.
Buy-One-Get-One-Free will fill the park. Hope for tomorrow because it is bound to be better than today is always a good sell in the land of Catholicism, cheese, bratwurst and beer. The Two ‘C’s’ & Two ‘B’s’ will always sell in the land of the Potawatomi on the edge of Pigsville.
Good luck Brewer fans. If you buy this pile of Hollywood BS, I’ve got a movie you can invest in.
Play Ball!
overtheshouldermlb 