Brewers Owner Reportedly Helped Get Rhys Hoskins Deal Across the Finish Line

Generally speaking, roster deals for the Milwaukee Brewers get negotiated and finalized by the front office. But sometimes, when it comes to the major deals, it's time to bring in the man at the top to get things done.

The Brewers recently had one of those major deals go through just last week when free agent first baseman Rhys Hoskins agreed to a contract with the Crew. The deal will pay at minimum $16MM pending buyouts.

Hoskins is represented by MLB super agent Scott Boras who has negotiated tons of deals over the years for superstar players. According to a recent report, he locked up a series of deals all in one day, including the most recent one with the Brewers that ended up getting the owner involved.

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio himself stepped in to help get the Rhys Hoskins deal across the finish line.

In a piece for USA Today, MLB insider Bob Nightengale detailed the day that Boras finalized a series of MLB deals, including the one for Hoskins. Per that story, the agent was at an eventual celebration for recently named Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre when he connected with Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, who ramped up efforts to get Hoskins into the fold.

"Just an hour before the Hall of Fame announcement, Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio telephoned to increase their offer to first baseman Rhys Hoskins to two-year, $34 million deal. They spoke for 20 minutes, and agreed to reconvene after the Hall of Fame announcement."

- Bob Nightengale, USA Today

Also per Nightengale, Boras would later end up confirming that Hoskins was good to go with the terms before informing other teams of his decision. The rest, as they say, is now history.

If any deal was going to require owner intervention, it was this one. Hoskins was pretty easily the top first baseman on the free agent market with 148 homers over six seasons to his name. Many MLB teams had been linked to him this offseason, most of them having much more financial resources than the Brewers.

So to beat out those other teams, it required writing a bigger check than the Brewers often tend to write. Those situations don't pop up often, but every once in a while Milwaukee will stretch the pocketbook a little extra to get a deal done. When that's happened, it's often being Attanasio jumping in to give final approval.

Sure, the Brewers are on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to payroll, but it's nice to know they have an owner who will step in to pony up when needed at least some of the time. This time, it got Milwaukee one of the better first basemen they've had in years.