The Brewers are making an ultimate gamble with Craig Counsell. Will it pay off in the end?
In the immediate aftermath of losing the winningest manager in franchise history, of having the team’s greatest rival swoop in and poach one of the faces of Milwaukee baseball, there was no litany of canned statements of thanks for years of service to the organization from Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio.
There were no platitudes. This wasn’t a time filled with well wishes.
There was a message from Attanasio and the Brewers. And it was sent loud and clear.
“It is what it is," Attanasio said.
That wasn't all, either.
“We’re committed to finding a manager who can be as successful as Craig.”
“We plan on winning with the next manager.”
“We’re ready to compete with everybody. We had the fifth-best record in baseball this year.”
“Craig was definitely a key part of our success but if I wanted to list all the reasons we’re successful, we’d be on another half an hour.”
“We will succeed.”
Talk about making a statement.
The Brewers won with Counsell but not exclusively because of him, they are effectively saying.
And not only did they indicate as much with words on Monday, but with actions.
Knowing Counsell was looking to raise the bar for manager’s salaries across the game, the Brewers effectively opted to move on rather than compete at the top of the market.
Were they given a chance to match the Cubs’ offer of five years and just over $40 million? Would they have matched if they did?
Both Attanasio and Counsell opted not to answer directly, telling reporters they did not want to get into negotiation details.
That leaves it to the discerning observer to determine what likely transpired – and while it seems that the Brewers may not have been given the chance to match the Cubs’ offer on the spot Monday, it was likely clear from prior conversations that they were not going to anyway.
So off Counsell went, leaving the Brewers, stunned and frustrated, behind for Chicago.
That isn’t to say the Brewers didn’t make an offer, of course. The one of $5.5 million annually the Brewers extended would have made Counsell the highest-paid manager in baseball.
But yesterday’s market is not necessarily today’s market – especially when one team trumps yesterday’s offer by around $2.5 million annually.
The Brewers were not going to retain Counsell’s services at the price of their offer. He was not taking a hometown discount even if, given their history, the Brewers may have hoped Counsell would take one.
If they wanted to keep Counsell, they were going to have to have already put down the kind of money the Cubs had on the table, whether in average salary or guaranteed years or both.
They did not do that.
They, instead, made a gamble. A calculated gamble.
They made a gamble they did not need to pay Counsell what he was asking. That they can more effectively allocate that money into the roster. That they can find a competent successor.
That they can win without him.
The truth is that nobody knows if the gamble will pay and they hit the jackpot, soaring to heights they never reached with Counsell, or if the decision will fall flat on its face, both from an on-the-field standpoint as well as a PR one.
What we do know is this: Somewhere in that $2.5 million gulf between the Brewers' offer and the Cubs’ is where Milwaukee believes the limit to the value of Counsell, or any manager, is.
Therein, too, lies one of the grand challenges from this situation. How, exactly, do you determine a manager’s worth in terms of wins and losses added or subtracted?
That’s easy to figure out when it comes to players thanks to metrics such as wins above replacement, but it’s harder to pin down a solitary number that indicates what a manager provides.
How do you quantify the value of those in-game decisions? The lineups? The bullpen workload management? The ability to blend the numbers with gut instinct?
It’s not exactly clear.
“I think the analytics on that are a long way from being developed,” Attanasio said. “That wouldn’t enter into things for us. Craig, I’m not going to speak for Craig, he spoke plenty over the past several weeks as to what he was trying to do.
“We’ll see if it was successful or if this was a one-off.”
In the end, Milwaukee did what Attanasio called “the right thing." Counsell accomplished his goal of allowing the open market to dictate whether the bar should be raised for managers' salaries. He just happened to do it someplace else.
But it’s of course not just someplace else. It’s Chicago. Close in proximity to Milwaukee, both in physical distance and, more often than not, the division standings. Perhaps this reason alone, you may think, is why the Brewers should have stepped up to the plate and offered more money when the demand was only a couple million dollars annually. Or perhaps you believe that's the exact reason why Counsell is in the wrong.
This is all why so much about this situation is not black-and-white. It's messy. It's convoluted. It's why public opinion is split down the middle.
Maybe the Brewers wind up looking wise from a wins and losses standpoint with their decision to not go that extra $2.5 million to retain Counsell. Maybe a manager, even one as skilled as Counsell, isn’t worth that much money.
But maybe he is.
Time will tell. The chips – 40 million of them – are in the middle of the table. The Brewers have shown their cards.
Will they win?
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Will the Brewers' gamble on Craig Counsell pay off?
