Shambles
The Milwaukee Brewers don't look good. Craig Counsell really doesn't look good. This is bad, and as surprising as it wasn't surprising at all.
If there only was someone around who could have clearly seen the organizational dysfunction and toxicity and called it what it was.
Oh, wait! That was me!
*deep exhale*
Now that that’s out of my system, let’s be honest: the longer this went on, the clearer it was that Craig Counsell wasn’t coming back. The Brewers did everything they could to retain his services. It wasn’t enough. Craiggers waited until he was contractually unencumbered and, as is his right, signed on to work somewhere else.
Except that somewhere else was the north side of Chicago.
Reports have already surfaced that Counsell was looking to make a statement for managers’ pay, which does indeed lag behind other coaching roles in professional (and collegiate) sports. He was guaranteed to make the most of any manager in MLB as a baseline, per Brewers beat writers at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
But the statement Counsell really wanted to make? Well, the Brewers got Jannetty’d by design, and the Ricketts family was all too happy to knife their manager in the back to get a guy who, by commission or omission, hasn’t been able to get it done in October.
The Wisconsin homer contingency has been more than vocal with their insistence that Counsell was one of us, a life-long Sconnie and Brewer. Of course, neither is true: Counsell came to Milwaukee in a package deal for Richie Sexson that was celebrated for its obtaining ‘major league talent’ and promptly went back to Arizona for two seasons.
He didn’t want to be in Milwaukee until he wanted to be there. And when he no longer wanted to be there, now 17 years later, he left. You could see this coming a year ago, when he was non-committal about signing an extension. Most chose denial, because this is how Upper Midwesterners tend to roll.
This hits different now, doesn’t it? Look at his face when they begin talking about the Hader trade and financial restraints.
All that other talk about being a Brewer? That’s a script. It’s an act. Few players care about the jersey they wear. They can’t all be Joe Mauer, and they all shouldn’t. Counsell basically did what Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield did: they went home when there was nothing better to do and nothing more to achieve.
But this? This is something very, very different. Think Terry Francona going to manage the Yankees after the Red Sox won it all in 2004. (Johnny Damon actually did this! Some say the smoke from all the torched ‘Johnny Is My Homeboy’ t-shirts can still be seen lingering high above New England.)
Ultimately, Craig Counsell left because the organization is a mess and has been for some time. You wouldn’t want to stay with a toxic organization on the brink. He, too, did not have that obligation.
It’s going to the Chicago Cubs that is the real statement. He wants to stick it to this franchise. He was almost certainly handcuffed by an unaccountable David Stearns and saw the organization without a head in 2023, no stadium financing deal in place, a regional sports network contract expiring after 2024 and no obvious replacements for an eventually departing Corbin Burnes or injured Brandon Woodruff. What’s there to come back to?
(Side note: If you think Bally Sports is bad, look at what the Padres had to do to cover payroll, and the abyss they’re staring into now with non-guaranteed revenue from MLB doing broadcasts for the foreseeable future. This is the game that has to be played. Major league teams are wise to play it.)
Mark Attanasio made his remarks Monday night about Craig losing the team and the community. It’s a strong statement and one that needed to be made, even if the actual solidarity between ownership and the community and state is significantly more tenuous. But the fact is that the correct move here is to reflect as the steward of an organization with a dubious history and see how its greatest manager could bail for its most bitter rival.
Going on the record and promising to bring everyone back — and let’s remember that the Brewers offense continues to be amongst the worst in baseball for years, with exactly one impact bat in the pipeline and close to arrival — does two things: First, it reveals a tone-deafness by the organization to the stark reality of its problems. And second, it prevents a new manager from bringing in his own people, thereby self-limiting the managerial candidate pool. With reports that Pat Murphy may be on a shortlist to take the reins, it makes sense, but it makes sense if you want to bring back the framework of a wildly overachieving club and expect it to overachieve again.
They tried that with the franchise-best pitching staff after 2021 and it didn’t work. They slid Matt Arnold into the spot Stearns vacated, and the jury is out on whether or not that’s the right decision. There’s no championship tradition here to carry on, in fact, quite the opposite. Even with this being the best chapter in Brewers history, it’s still a history of losing and a history unworthy of being carried on. Mark Attanasio’s lasting legacy may be one of being too conservative an owner when bold action is needed.
The boldest action was taken Monday. The Brewers’ response has been anything but.
What was smoking two years ago and smoldering a year ago is fully ablaze now. A contract may keep someone in place, but you need better reasons to make someone want to stay. Whether or not that lesson is learned right now will dictate the future of the franchise.