Milwaukee Brewers Blog - Between the Green Pillars : CC Sabathia

Odds and Ends

Ryan Topp — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:38:25 GMT

Jayson Stark over at ESPN.com had an interesting bit of info on the Brewers pursuit of CC Sabathia:

Brewers: Five years, $100 million, with significant deferred money, and indications the Brewers would go to six years, $110 million or so -- with opt-outs and other perks -- if it would get the deal done.

Going from 5 years and 100 million to 6 years and 110 million dollars wouldn't be too big a deal from the Brewers perspective, since it likely means lowering the annual salary in most years of the contract. It's also probably not close to enough to get the deal done. The scary part of that blurb is the bit about offering an opt out clause as a perk to CC.

Allowing a player the opportunity to opt out of their contract sounds simple enough. After all, it can make a contract shorter, which is pretty much always a good thing, right? Well, not in this case. By giving a player the option to dissolve their contract somewhere in the back half of it (one would assume that the clause would probably be given for after the 3rd or 4th year of a 6 year offer) the team assumes the risk of poor performance at the back end of a deal while assuring themselves that if they do get lucky, the player is still productive and the team would actually be getting value, they will leave for a better offer elsewhere. Also, most opt out clauses do not allow the team to offer arbitration to the player, which means no compensation picks.

One can only hope that the Brewers offer isn't competitive enough to actually make CC consider taking it, because that sort of a deal leaves the team exposed to the same sort of risk associated with the full value of the contract, without the potential benefits of it working out.

Tim Dierkes at mlbtraderumors.com has the Brewers listed among the suitors for Randy Johnson, who at age 45 is looking to hit a couple of milestones to fill out his career resume. If the price is anywhere near reasonable the Brewers have to hope that Johnson remembers how he was treated by Crew fans last year when he moved into second place on the career strikeout list and wants his swan song to take place in Milwaukee. He's no longer a front line guy, but he's perfectly capable of being a solid mid-rotation option for a team needing to fill out it's starting staff. It's also a chance to get a guy whose production would probably warrant a multi-year deal for a single year because of his age.

Starting in a few weeks, the writers of Between the Green Pillars will begin running our top 25 prospect list in conjunction with the writers at Bernie's Crew. Be on the lookout for that down the road.

(H/T to Brewerfanx1 for finding the links for the first two items on the list)

Getting Caught Up

Ryan Topp — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:15:47 GMT

Alright, it's been a while and there is lots to cover so I'll fly through some of this stuff quicker than it deserves.

Ken Macha was hired to be the new manager of the Brewers. On the plus side, he has an impeccable record of winning as a manager in his time in Oakland. He shepherded young pitching staffs while keeping them relatively healthy and isn't a fan of giving up outs, which give me hope. On the downside, his departure in Oakland raised a lot of questions about his ability to connect with players. Oh, and if you're a fan of "Fire X" sites, here is Macha's from his time in Oakland. It's not flattering, obviously, and even gets a little "blue" at times. Interestingly, Macha only received a two year deal, which means that Melvin is hedging his bets and possibly trying to give Macha an incentive to get along with players. The next few years are big ones for the franchise, because they represent the culmination of the tenure for a lot of the homegrown "core" before many will have to leave to seek greener pastures. If Macha can push the team for a few years of big success before wearing out his welcome, then this will be good. If, however, the problems getting along with players surfaces in that time, a very valuable and possibly rare opportunity could be squandered. Cross your fingers.

Former interim manager, bench and third base coach Dale Sveum will be the new hitting coach for manager Ken Macha. The job of hitting coach is generally overlooked until the team slumps offensively, so it's not an easy gig. Fortunately for Sveum, he built up some good will helping the team make the playoffs in the waning days of the 2008 season, so maybe he'll get a little pass from the fans for a while.

Unfortunately, pitching coach Mike Maddux will not be back for a seventh season and will instead be taking the same job with the Rangers. On balance, his tenure with Milwaukee has to be considered a success. He rarely had a lot of depth or high priced talent, but he managed to squeeze many useful seasons out of modest and/or unrefined talents. Good luck to him, because he is going to need it working with that staff in that park. In related news, longtime bullpen coach Bill Castro will take over in that position. His 17 years in the pen saw far more good years than bad and he's earned the shot to see what he can do with the whole staff. The success of his tenure will almost certainly rest on how well he is able to develop the young talents at the big league level and currently in the minor leagues.

The final piece of coaching news just hit today, with the job of bench coach going to former Mets manager Willie Randolph. So manager Ken Macha will have two men passed over for his position (Randolph and hitting coach Dale Sveum) on his staff, though if that were likely to present a problem they probably wouldn't have been hired. Randolph had quite a bit of success as the Yankees bench coach under Joe Torre and almost certainly wasn't as bad a manager as Mets fans believe. He should be a valuable asset for Macha to draw on.

Moving on to player news:

Nearly as soon as the Brewers made the call to pick up Mike Cameron's 10 million dollar club option (a smart move) rumors started to swirl about a possible trade with the Yankees involving Cameron. It seems like a legitimate sort of rumor and clearly there have been talks between the teams. Cameron is someone that the Brewers should definitely consider trading if the offer is right, but that "right offer" almost certainly needs to include some young pitching. There isn't much to get excited about in Melky Cabrera or Wilson Betemit, both would be useful as role or platoon players but neither is likely to ever be a plus starter and that is what the Brewers would be giving up in Cameron at this point. If the Yankees are serious about getting Cameron, it should cost them a guy like Ian Kennedy. Granted, he hasn't been good thus far in the major leagues, but he is not yet 24 and has been mostly impressive in the minor leagues. He could probably benefit from a lower pressure atmosphere than New York to break into the major leagues and the Brewers could use a young potential mid rotation starter.

The Brewers have apparently offered CC Sabathia something in the neighborhood of 100 million dollars for 5 years. This is probably no where near enough to actually get a deal done, which is fortunate because it is also probably too big a risk for the Brewers to take on one player, especially an overworked starting pitcher. Such is the life of a small market team.

Talking Payroll Structure Part II or Why Giving CC A Big Contract is Dangerous

Ryan Topp — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:06:00 GMT

A while back, I took a rudimentary look at the Brewers payroll structure in terms of the implications of contracts that take up a large percentage of the total payroll. There is recent news that the Brewers may be looking to offer CC Sabathia something in the range of 4 years and 100 million dollars. Given the rising cost of the young hitting core and the few multi-year contracts on the books at the moment, that means that the Brewers would almost certainly be committed to having to support a 90+ million dollar a year payroll in the next 4 years if they plan on competing. They have talent in the minors, but not so much that they could afford to go all Florida Marlins and start dumping most players the minute they hit arbitration and aren't working for slave wages.

The Brewers, as an organization, are particularly tied to their ability to draw people to the park to sustain payroll. Like every other team, the Brewers do get money from MLB from it's overall TV contract, MLB.com and, like all small market teams, they get some revenue sharing. Where they fall very short of many (all, in fact) other teams, is they have the worst TV contract in baseball through 2012. That's right, the worst. Without a big fat cushion of guaranteed TV money to fall back on, the team has to draw fans to the seats to sustain payroll. What's more, the fact that they play in a small market means that even when they are drawing fans, they cannot squeeze as much revenue out of the fans as their competitors. The fact that they had the 21st most expensive ticket prices in 2008 (and 28th most expensive overall park experience) is great news for fans trying to take a family to the park, but limits the amount of money the team can raise.

One thing about attendance is that fans are fickle when it comes to supporting their team. People who are interested enough to be reading this will probably get out to the park much more than most of their neighbors anyway. We all know, however, that when a team is doing well, a lot of people who wouldn't be there otherwise start showing up. Those people go away when the wins start going away.

So what does this mean for the Brewers? In short, it means they would not be able to afford any bad luck what-so-ever without feeling a major budget crunch should they decide to give CC that money. As talked about in part I, signing CC would mean that the Brewers would have a lot less room to do other things. They would have to cut the budget significantly in areas like the bullpen and the bench to make ends meet, which means a lot of "ready or not" guys from the middle levels of the farm system filling in key roles because there wouldn't be money to pay much more than major league minimum. Basically, they would have to get a big number of wins over replacement (different than the traditional "win-loss" record for pitchers) from CC Sabathia because they're going to have a hard time finding money to buy them elsewhere.

If that works out, then the Brewers will almost certainly be a perennial contender in the NL Central for the life of the contract. If, however, Sabathia begins to feel the effects of being pitched very heavily the last two years and having pitched a large number of innings at a tender age overall, then the Brewers will have a very big problem because they will almost certainly have trouble competing.

This brings us back to the consequences of not being able to compete in a given year. If the team is counting on needing to compete to remain financially solvent (as would almost certainly be the case should they take on CC's contract) then they cannot afford to not compete. That means that if a situation calls for taking a step back in say 2011 or 2012 and reloading for 2013 and 2014, they will almost certainly not be able to make that decision and instead probably be forced to do things like trade prospects for marginal players to try to eek out every extra win possible to contend or even just maintain the illusion of "trying to win now." A situation like that would almost certainly not only fail to produce wins in the short term, but also limit the ability to win for several years down the road as a result of giving up prospects out of necessity.

Most Brewer fans rightly seem to realize that giving a contract to Sabathia would represent a big risk. It's important to realize just how large a risk that really is, especially when you consider that the current state of the economy makes any large commitment of money particualrly risky. Of course, it is probably no more than an extreme long shot that CC comes back at anything close to those terms anyway. Still, the organization's willingness to at least consider the possiblity says that they have a good amount of gamble in them. Hopefully they are going into this with their eyes completely open.

Talking Payroll Structure

Ryan Topp — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:45:35 GMT

Excellent Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy mentioned this bit of intelligence from inside the Brewers inner sanctum in reference to a question on the possibility of keeping CC Sabathia in the fold:

According to someone familiar with the Brewers' front-office strategy, who spoke on condition of anonymity, a team generally wants its top-salaried player to account for no more than 15 percent of the total payroll, and the top three players to account for no more than 25 percent. Obviously, this is only a guideline; special players could prompt a team to bend the rules. Teams with a disproportionate number of so-called zero-to-three-year players making the league minimum or close to it may also be tempted.

He goes on to break down on the obvious problems this would present for signing Sabathia given what he is likely to command on the market this year and the other commitments they have on top of that.

It may be tempting to call CC Sabathia a "special player" along the lines of what it would take to violate this guideline, because he was so utterly dominant in his time in Milwaukee this year. A look at the rest of his career, however, suggests a very good player but not generally elite. Also, it is important to remember that pitchers are subject to a higher rate of injury than position players, both that keep them out of games and that hurt their effectiveness.

The Brewers a few years ago would have been in the category of teams with a "disproportionate number of so-called-zero-to-three-year-players" because so many of their starting players in 2006 and 2007 were pre-arbitration. Of course, now JJ Hardy, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart, Rickie Weeks are all headed to arbitration and will be in for substantial raises so they can't really use that excuse to justify signing CC. Besides, Sabathia would require at least a 5 year commitment and probably more, so this would be a long term issue that would dominate the payroll for a long time and unless the team plans on completely dumping nearly all of the current "young core" to be replaced by players now in the minor leagues and are as yet undrafted. Remember that they have Braun under contract through 2015 and that within a few years his salary will push him into the top 3 players salary wise on the team.

A team in the Brewers position market wise has limitations to how much it can make in revenue. They can fill the seats every year by having winning teams, but they won't be able to push ticket prices up as high as some markets because they are not drawing on as large a pool of potential buyers as most markets and thus demand will never equal that of the Cubs or Red Sox. More importantly, the TV revenue is always going to be a fraction of the big markets because they have more potential viewers than Milwaukee. Knowing this, the Brewers have to operate under a fairly conservative estimate of potential revenue when planning long term contract spending.

As long as the Brewers farm system is producing talent (and it will have to if they want to be competitive) they are going to have more flexibility than most in terms of pushing those 15% and 25% numbers up a bit. If they have 3 or 4 key players in pre-arby years and another 3 or 4 key players under cost controlled arbitration or signed to below market level "buyout" deals, they will have a sizable portion of the payroll available for the rest of the roster.

Still, what it comes down to from a decision making perspective is does a team want to:

Spend an enormous portion of that leftover money on one player, meaning that many bench, bullpen and back-of-the-rotation players will have to be drawn from whatever the Brewers can scrape up in their back end of their farm system and off the no-cost scrap heap.
Use that money to fill in gaps in the roster on more short term deals. For example, while the team is producing a catcher they have the money to sign a Jason Kendall instead of just rushing up a minor league player who isn't ready.

In the end, one has to think that the Brewers are going to rightly value #2 too much to offer a deal that would leave them totally committed to perpetually having an extremely young team with little true veteran presence. The only way I can see them offering a deal that would truly qualify them in category #1 would be if they were sure it would be turned down.

Decision Time

Ryan Topp — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:25:34 GMT

So the Brewers are making decisions left and right at the moment, with more big ones on the way.

First off, General Manager Doug Melvin gets a three year extension though the 2012 season. Owner Mark Attanasio did what he needed to do in locking Melvin up after overruling Melvin on the firing of manager Ned Yost with 12 games left. This gives Melvin the public backing of the owner he needs going forward. It also puts to rest concerns that Melvin would view 2009 as a "must win" situation to save his job if he didn't have the extension.

In that same article it was announced that interim-manager Dale Sveum would not be returning as manager. Sveum is always going to hold a special place in the hearts of Brewer fans as the man who some how managed to salvage a season that looked to be going up in smoke. That being said, Sveum has never even been so much as a top candidate for a major league job before. Giving him a shot now would have been nothing but an act of faith and Melvin appears to be looking for someone with a longer track record of success.

Of course hiring a manager because they had success in the past is no guarantee of future success. I'm a firm believer in the notion that, in the long run, a manager is just about as good as the players they have to work with. Not to say that it doesn't matter who manages a team, because, of course, a manager can do things that will harm a team's long-term fortune, like hurting a young pitcher or stunting the growth of a young position player by poorly allocating playing time. The most important asset the next manager of the Brewers needs to possess is the good sense not to fool around too much with what is working, like the power oriented offensive nature of the team, while finding ways to improve areas that need work, such as situational hitting. They also need to know when to pull the young pitchers that are going to be so important to the future of the franchise. Davey Johnson seems like a good choice on both counts, at least by reputation.

Finally, word is out that Melvin does plan on making an offer to keep free-agent-to-be CC Sabathia. It remains to be seen how legitimate that offer will be. It would seem that the opening offer would need to be within shouting distance of the 6 year, 137.5 million dollar deal that the Mets gave Johan Santana last off-season. Sabathia isn't quite in the class of Santana when you consider more than just 2009, but he has the ability to be a free agent now, as opposed to Santana who was negotiating with a year to go before he could hit the open market. So will Melvin make a Carlos Lee type offer, where Melvin offered what turned out to be about half of what Lee ended up getting? Or, on the other hand, will it be more along the lines of what Fransisco Cordero was offered, which was close to market value but a little bit low?

The Brewers are at a point where, to keep Sabathia in the fold, they would probably need to give him over 1/4 of the total yearly payroll for 6+ years, barring some major shift where the Brewers fly by the 100 million dollar a year mark for annual payroll. Considering the heavy workload that CC has shouldered since coming to the majors and the even more staggering amount of abuse the Brewers heaped on him down the stretch in 2008, there is a significant chance that CC will have trouble living up to that payday and become a drag on the team's fortunes sooner rather than later.

Does Melvin have that kind of gamble in him?