This offseason proves that Brewers owner Mark Attanasio needs to sell the team

Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is not a villain in the sense that Jeffrey Loria was or Bob Nutting is. The Brewers are generally competitive each year and Attanasio is not the type of owner that completely refuses to invest in the big league roster as well. Considering some of the ultra thrifty/borderline crooks that own teams right now, the Brewers are not in a terrible spot at the ownership level.

However, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Brewers are always going to be very limited under Attanasio. The Brewers clearly are just another asset to him given his other interests and he simply doesn't have the cash flow and wherewithal to consistently put the Brewers in the top half of baseball in terms of payroll which may be the only way for Milwaukee to compete and grow as a brand in the long-term. There was hope after the Brewers extended Christian Yelich and found a way to lock up Jackson Chourio, but it feels like the franchise has slammed on the spending brakes since.

Yes, Milwaukee is not a gigantic market, but that is only so much of an excuse. After an offseason where the Brewers let Willy Adames go and made the cost-cutting move to trade Devin Williams, one thing is abundantly clear: Milwaukee needs a new owner to have any chance of getting over the hump.

Despite Brewers success, only a new owner will get them over the finish line

Among the small market teams, the Brewers have been the most successful. They have made the postseason in six of the past seven years and they consistently field a team that can win the division each and every year. Mission accomplished, right?

The problem with that logic is two-fold. One, it sort of ignores the fact that the NL Central is one of the weakest divisions in baseball and the Brewers seems to know it. They will build a roster that is good enough to win the division race, but fall short against MLB's elite. There is a reason why the Brewers have only won a single playoff series since 2018. They can't go out and get the best players and when they develop those sorts of guys, they get traded away as soon as they start costing real money.

This starts at the top with Attanasio. Milwaukee seemingly has a very smart front office led by Matt Arnold, but they are never going to be able to leverage that advantage when the team is funded by an owner that ranks among MLB's "poorest" owners. No one should be asking for Steve Cohen levels of spending in Milwaukee (although that would be fun).

Even a modest payroll increase to the $140-150 million range with a more liquid owner would make a massive difference on the field and would put the Brewers in the same range as the Twins, Orioles, Tigers, and Mariners who are not exactly known as big spenders themselves. Such an increase would have been enough to keep Adames or make one other impact signing. Given how good the Brewers' core is, that missed opportunity could be the difference in the playoffs.

Can the Brewers win with their current financial restraints? Maybe. They keep making the playoffs and we have seen teams make crazier runs with less. It will always be a hinderance, however, as long as Attanasio runs the team. He is simply to divested in other projects like the stock market and other sports like soccer to be willing and able to invest in the Brewers like he should. He is looking at maintaining homeostasis and making as much as he expects to, not taking risks to try and grow Milwaukee's reach. Just look at the Brewers spending the last several years. They are always around 20th in the league, if not significantly lower.

The odds of a sale are remarkably low. Attanasio has talked about passing the team on to his kids one day. That is unfortunate because while he doesn't rank among baseball's worst owners, he also isn't going to be enough to get where Brewers want to go barring a few lottery tickets breaking the team's way. The more likely future under Attanasio is a lot more of what we have seen. Good enough to make the end of the season interesting, but will always be at a deficit come October.

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