FanHouse Mark Attanasio

A year ago at this time the Milwaukee Brewers were wrapping up their first postseason berth in 25 years, and even though they were knocked out of the Division Series by the Phillies, expectations were raised in Milwaukee. Those expectations weren't met this season as the Brew Crew is battling just to finish .500.

So it's no surprise that the team's owner, Mark Attanasio, is disappointed with this year's results, but he's focused on the future of his club and how it can get back to the postseason. Obviously changes will need to be made in Milwaukee if the Brewers are going to contend in the NL Central next season, and that means there are some tough decisions to be made.

From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Salary Cap. There's not a more controversial phrase in baseball economics. The prospect of one hung over the strike of 1994 and 1995 before the owners and players managed to settle without implementing a true cap. Since then, baseball has instituted a luxury tax that acts as a sort of soft cap, but it's set high enough that it only really affects the Yankees annually, and they regard it in the same manner that a rhinoceros regards a mosquito.

For the most part, a salary cap hasn't been part of the conversation in baseball for several years. The Yankees ridiculous spending spree this winter, however, has changed things. In the days and weeks since their signings of CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and Astros owner Drayton McLane have once again begun to call for a salary cap. They're the only two owners to have spoken directly on this issue, but it's hard to think they're alone.

A salary cap in baseball is not a simple thing. In most sports, there's only one line in labor negotiations: the line between the players and the owners. In baseball, there's actually a three-way divide between the players, the "big-market" owners (for lack of a better term), and the "small-market" owners. The MLBPA isn't the only thing that stands in the way of a cap. Some of the owners (think John Henry, the Steinbrenners, naturally, the Wilpons, Frank McCourt, Arte Moreno) would likely be opposed to one as well. After the jump, we'll look at all the obstacles and problems with implementing a cap.

Most of us have taken for granted that CC Sabathia isn't long for Milwaukee, and given how the Brewers rode him like a rented car in the stretch run, it seemed like the coaching staff wasn't planning on having him back, either. But before he packs his bags and heads for some rich team on the coast (he should have his pick -- the Yankees, Angels and Dodgers have all been mentioned in rumors), it turns out the Brewers might make a pitch for him to stay after all. From ESPN's Buster Olney:

Others in the Brewers' organization say Milwaukee owner Mark Attanasio will try to make it very difficult for Sabathia to leave -- maybe to the point of risking a colossal mistake. Attanasio has seen how Sabathia has made an enormous difference for Milwaukee in attendance -- which climbed dramatically for every game the left-hander started -- and in the standings; the Brewers were 14-3 in the 17 regular-season starts that Sabathia made for the team. And he was a model of competitive integrity; if you wanted to invest big dollars in any player, you'd feel great about signing Sabathia, who demonstrated repeatedly that he will put his team above his own personal interests. You couldn't blame Attanasio if he were to get aggressive with his offer to the lefty.

It's a risky move -- CC has thrown a lot of pitches over the last four years -- but if the Brewers are intent on getting an ace, I'd prefer to see them gamble on a free agent than pulling the trigger on the "Matt Cain for Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy" proposal floated by Peter Gammons recently.

Sabathia has been a horse his entire career, making at least 30 starts a year every season but one (when he made 28 in 2006), so it's not out of the question that he mainstains his current level of production. On the other hand, he could just as easily follow the up-and-down career-arc of Bartolo Colon, another pudgy workhorse who got his start with the Indians, though I think staying in the more pitcher-friendly National League helps mitigate that risk.

When Ned Yost got the phone call from GM Doug Melvin asking for a meeting yesterday morning, he admitted that for a moment his job flashed before his eyes. From Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"I said, 'Are they going to fire me?' I said, 'No, not with 12 games left,' " recalled Yost, who has a year left on his contract.

But when Yost entered Melvin's room and owner Mark Attanasio was there also, the message was clear.

"When I saw Mark, I knew that was it," he said.

The Brewers have been simply awful since the start of September -- they've lost 11 of 14 and have five regulars under the Mendoza line -- but Yost still thinks he received a bum deal:

Asked to sum up the situation, Yost said, "It's the nature of the business but it's gotten a little strange. Two bad weeks (and you get fired)."

What Yost is forgetting, though, is that the Brewers have gone through more than two bad weeks, at least when you consider their performance down the stretch last season. The Brewers led the NL Central by as many as 8 1/2 games last year and still managed to miss the playoffs. If he couldn't stop the slide in 2007, why should Melvin and Attanasio have thought he could stop it this year?

It's not exactly saying a lot for your franchise when your wife sincerely questioned your decision-making on the issue, but Brewers' owner Mark Attanasio took a leap of faith that's beginning to pay off:

His friends told him he was absolutely nuts. His wife, Debbie, figured he was joking or going through a midlife crisis.

"The Milwaukee Brewers?" Mark Attanasio kept hearing over and over from friends. " 'You want to buy a Major League Baseball team, and the team you want is the Brewers?' "

"I'm not sure anyone understood," says Attanasio, 49, in his third season as Brewers owner while living in Los Angeles and running an investment-management firm responsible for $150 billion in assets.

"Even my wife said, 'You're not really serious are you?' Then when she saw the look on my face, she said, 'Can we really afford this?' Now she's watching the games with me. She just draws the line when we're in Europe and won't stay up until 5 in the morning with me watching the games on the Internet."

Despite all of that criticism, the Brewers might just be making a long-term turnaround. They've got one of the coolest ballparks in the sport, a fanbase far more rabid that debunked ratings numbers gave it credit for, and, oh yeah -- the best record in baseball this year. Not bad for such a highly derided purchase.

Previously on the FanHouse:
The Brewers Just Got a Lot More Popular
The Best Record in Baseball Belongs to the Brewers