David Michael Miller
I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
In their 50 seasons my beloved Milwaukee Brewers have never won a World Series. They have a three-year window now as they own the best player in baseball, Christian Yelich. Yelich’s contract expires after the 2022 season and there’s not much chance the Brewers can keep him after that. Even if they could, most of his prime years will be behind him by then, when he will be 31.
So, now is the time to surround Yelich with the best players possible and go for it all. And what are the cheap bastards who own the Brewers doing? Giving away their best players and signing mediocre journeymen so that they can save a bunch of money. Last year the Brewers’ payroll was $125 million. So far this year, it’s only $90 million, down by 28%.
The Brewers didn’t even make a real attempt to keep Yasmani Grandal, the best hitting catcher in baseball, or Mike Moustakas, who hit 35 home runs last year, provided leadership in the clubhouse, and was a Milwaukee fan favorite. And, as free agents, the Brewers couldn’t even trade them for other players. They got nothing.
Instead, among the greats the Brewers have signed this offseason we have Jedd Gyorko, 31, who has a mediocre .245 career average and who outdid himself last year by batting all of .174. Then the Brewers were able to snag Justin Smoak, 33, who posts a .231 career average and managed to hit just .208 in 2019. And, of course, there’s the return of Eric Sogard, 33, who did hit an impressive .290 last year, but whose career average is just .248. It doesn’t look like anybody is going to be calling for breaking up the Brewers anytime soon.
In fairness, they did pick up a few promising players like catcher Omar Narvaez who is 27 and has a .276 career batting average and Luis Urias, only 22, who will provide some needed competition at shortstop for the weak hitting Orlando Arcia. Still, the fact that Urias is hitting .221 over his career and the Brewers think he might be an improvement on Arcia shouldn’t inspire too much confidence.
Despite a couple of good moves, there’s no question that on paper the Brewers are weaker going into the 2020 season. The Vegas betting line has them at 85 wins, four fewer than last year, when the Brewers snuck into the playoffs.
And please, don’t give me that stuff about Milwaukee being a “small market.”
Other small market clubs, like the Cincinnati Reds and Minnesota Twins, were listed on Major League Baseball’s own website as among the nine clubs that signed the most promising players in the offseason. In fact, of those nine teams only two (the Yankees and the Angels) were among the 10 most valuable clubs according to Forbes.
It’s not the size of the market that matters so much. It’s how much the owners are willing to open their wallets to try to win a pennant for their fans. Sure, a higher cash flow makes it easier to pay better and more expensive players and still turn a profit in any given year, but most owners are (or should be) in it for the long run. A professional sports franchise is not like just any other business. The owners of ball clubs made their money someplace else. The Brewers’ principal owner, Mark Attanasio, made a fortune as an investment manager. His net worth was estimated at $700 million in 2012. Forbes only knows what it is today.
So, owners don’t need to turn an annual profit. They can lose money and still feed their families. For them it’s a lot more like owning a mansion than owning a business. They lose money on the mansion every year but they get to show off the bauble to their friends and they hope to make a killing when they sell it.
And the promise of a big payday when the current owners sell the Brewers is assured. Attanasio’s syndicate bought the team for $223 million in 2005. Today, Forbes values the club at $1.175 billion. That’s an increase of 526% over 15 years. During that same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up about 200%. So, the investment in a major league ballclub was well over twice as profitable as the market. As an investment manager, Attanasio should be pleased.
You would think the Brewers owners would also take into account the return on investment of winning a pennant. A team that wins the World Series is probably going to be more valuable because of the prestige and because of increased merchandise sales. But apparently the owners have decided that they’ll make more money if they cheap out on players while they count on Milwaukee fans to keep showing up at the games and continuing to put up with mediocrity on the field.
I’m sorry. Not good enough. Attanasio and his investors owe it to Milwaukee fans to try as hard as they can to win now. After all, those fans who live in southeast Wisconsin, and for that matter anyone whoever bought anything there in the last couple of decades, contributed $600 million to build and maintain the Brewers’ ballpark through a special sales tax. And Milwaukee fans consistently punch above their “small market” weight in attendance. Last year, the Brewers drew almost 3 million fans, ranking eighth out of the 30 clubs.
And here’s the broader view: We need more critical reporting on the business of sports. Wisconsin sports writers will criticize coaches and players and sometimes even fans but they’re absolute shills for the front offices. Business reporters don’t take much of an interest.
We could use a writer who drills down on the business side of professional sports (and I count big time college sports as professional). These are huge industries with big economic and cultural impacts and often substantial taxpayer subsidies. And, yet, they pretty much get a pass when it comes to any kind of meaningful scrutiny of their business practices.
Look, owners of pro sports franchises and big time college athletic programs exploit the irrational decision-making of their consumers — fan is short for fanatic, after all. So, there should be at least one good reporter out there drilling down on the numbers and asking hard questions on behalf of the fans and taxpayers. I would cheer for that.
