Failure by Necessity
Pat Murphy probably wasn't the Milwaukee Brewers' first choice to replace Craig Counsell. But he probably was the only one.
Pat Murphy doesn’t represent a clean break from the David Stearns-Craig Counsell era of Milwaukee Brewers baseball, but clean breaks aren’t what this organization is about.
What passes for continuity or some form of principled or conservative stewardship is in reality a Yankees-lite aversion to making needed changes. Unlike Mark Attanasio’s boyhood team, it’s not because his club is a perpetual money-printing machine with double-digit championships and zero single digit jerseys available for issue. Remember that Attanasio made his millions as an investment banker. Being principled and scrupulous with multi-comma accounts is good for clients and for fiduciary duty. It’s not so much running a professional sports franchise.
Mark Attanasio is not cheap. Cheap is what happened in Cincinnati after the Castellinis went all-in and washed out. Cheap is what Bob Nutting or John Fisher does with revenue sharing.
Bud Selig? Bud was cheap. And they built a fricking holodeck for him! What’s more, Brewers fans are all to happy to visit it!
Cheap drove Paul Molitor to cementing a Hall of Fame career in Toronto. Cheap decided to let the publicly managed and subsidized Stadium District hold the bag for all future maintenance and upkeep of a publicly funded and owned stadium. (And the state contractually bound itself to this agreement, something funding detractors willfully neglect when they go all ‘bIlLiOnAiReS cAn PaY fOr ThEiR oWn StAdIuM’, in which case, when the roof leaks or the toilet fails in your rental, don’t call the landlord. Feel free to pay for or fix it yourself.)
Cheap spends for ten tickets on bobblehead nights and lists those bobbles on eBay by the fourth inning. Cheap tailgates and complains about concession prices, neglecting fundamental laws of economics and that a portion of those concessions go to the nonprofits staffing those stands.
When you call Mark Attanasio cheap, look in the mirror.
The Brewers are in the smallest media market with the worst media rights deals in baseball. The broadcast company to which they’re contractually obligated is in dire shape, thanks to an estranged parent company that had no business getting to acquire it when Disney acquired 21st Century Fox and was forced (by the Trump DOJ) to spin it off.
They haven’t moved to market ticket pricing because, well, that idea won’t fly with people who get irritated when they have to pay more for parking for Sunday and Cubs games. Their stadium funding deal — one they have been negotiating fairly and aggressively, as is their right — is not across the finish line.
What the Brewers don’t want to do is end up like the San Diego Padres, forced to obtain financing to maintain payroll because the media money spigot got shut off. The RSN model may not be ideal, but MLB is not the NFL, and no other sports property is. And like it or not, that model is what helps maintain viability for the Milwaukees and Clevelands and Minnesotas of the world. One of those three has gone all-in on a youth movement. The other has already committed to a salary reduction. The other is the Brewers.
And all this brings us to Pat Murphy, the forthcoming manager.
Within this context, it makes perfect sense why the Brewers didn’t go full-bore after Joe Espada (whom I suspect they wanted and couldn’t get) or any of the other names that had been offered by media reports over the last week or so. They needed to promote from within, not for stability, but to protect the status quo. They needed to retain their [deeply suspect] big league coaching staff, and will similarly likely promote Rickie Weeks as bench coach, although that move is genuinely exciting.
Is it a failure of imagination on the part of Matt Arnold and Mark Attanasio? Yes. Is it failure by necessity? Also yes.
The entire organization is in a holding pattern right now because the tentpoles that keep this thing in the air aren’t guaranteed. Without a clear future in Wisconsin or certainty of who is broadcasting their games after 2024 (when the contract with Diamond Sports Group ends), spending money is foolish. (There’s a reason he invested so much in ownership in Norwich City.)
I’m not even saying I agree with everything Attanasio and Arnold are doing. Zooming out, I understand why and can appreciate it. It does, however, reflect on Attanasio’s tendency as an owner to hold onto things too long. Doug Melvin stayed for what was likely years too long. (I maintain Melvin jumped the shark including Nelson Cruz with Carlos Lee, because it always makes sense to trade your best player and your best player’s heir apparent.)
Stearns got the President of Baseball Operations title and, absent Attanasio’s oversight, turned it into something like performance art (and there’s a reason Arnold didn’t inherit that title). When the Brewers failed spectacularly in 2014, he ordered a full organizational review instead of forcing Melvin’s hand and firing Roenicke (which happened the next spring, ushering in the Counsell administration). The minor league system perennially struggles to develop talent into impact everyday major leaguers, and the emergence of Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson. If anything, Mark trusts his baseball people a little too much. At his age, I’m understandably unsure he has the appetite to change that now.
Which brings us to whatever comes next. If the past is any indication, and Attanasio’s word is to be taken at face value (those I’ve talked to who have spoken with him say he’s a straight shooter and gives all indications of an honest person) Pat Murphy is a placeholder, Rickie Weeks is the future, and so are Jackson Chourio, Jacob Misiorowski and Mark Attanasio’s children. Make of that whatever you will.
What part do Brewers fans and the state of Wisconsin play in all of this? Well, that depends on what happens in Madison, and how much we willfully misinterpret what happens with the organization and choose to blab about it on social media. Just remember that what you perceive to hate about others is what you choose to ignore about yourself. And nobody will make a hologram at the ballpark about you.