World Series: Brewers owner, general manager speak

I've had an incredible run for almost 10 years. Really good people that are scattered all throughout the industry now at this point. A lot of my good friends are still over there as well. I think the number one thing that I learned over there was just making sure that you're surrounded by good people and having a really good process, and hopefully the results will follow. Matt, to Steve's question a little bit, having the background that you have with Eric, with everyone in the organization there. When you were there, when you all were kind of coming up through this together, did you think about what it would be like whether it would be to compete together for a championship or maybe even against each other? And do you feel, I don't know, was there anything extra special for you for this to be a part of that conversation? Yeah, I mean, we did compete for championships there, but that was a long time ago. You know, I mean, we have a little bit of a different formula here, and they have a really good formula there, obviously. We learned a lot from each other. Still really good friends. Maybe not this week, but for sure for a lifetime. I consider them some of my closest friends. Go up to Andy. For Mark, I know this is old news for the organization, but when David Stearns and Craig Council left, there was upheaval in sort of the leadership of the franchise. And I guess from your perspective, what is it about the infrastructure that was in place that has allowed you guys to essentially not skip a beat since then? Well, the infrastructure, you know, if you have a, if you study businesses and organizations, you want to have good succession planning. And I'd make the point that, you know, before you get to even Matt and Pat Murphy, David Stearns and Craig Council, who really got us up the next leg in terms of not only bringing a winning culture to the club here, but also starting to put infrastructure in place, which then, you know, Matt in particular has, you know, really enhanced what we've done in baseball ops the last five years is extraordinary. And a lot of people talk about analytics, but that also really is much about player development and how you develop folks, you know, players from, you know, our Dominican facility all the way up to major leagues in the same manner. And to Matt's point, how we treat people and how he treats people and how Murph does, but, you know, Matt made sure, I think we have all the scouts here, we have people from all over the world to share this with us because they're part of it, right? Absolutely What are your messages for the fans that might remember the 57 Braves and still wear the Braves hats, and for the people who have been waiting for 44 years for another trip back, and then the younger folks who may not have been here before and say, hey, this is cool, let's do it more often. Yeah, so when our group first took stewardship of the team in 2005, All you really heard about was the 82 brewers and somewhat the 57 Braves. And, in fact, we have suites upstairs which commemorate the history in that. And one of the things we want to do is create our own history, which I think we've done before this. But this is such a meaningful step. It didn't really – I thought about this a lot the last – you know, practically since 2008. And it's just sinking in on what a historic step this is now. When I talked to Pat Murphy the other day, he said, you know, probably 10 years from now we'll be looking back on this and thinking about it. And it's all happening so fast. But I can say that the electricity in the city is tangible. You can feel it. and it was out last night and people were saying as great as the Packers Super Bowl win is, you know, the Bucs obviously terrific championship a few years ago, that this feels even more, the city feels even more energized and I'm very proud of everybody that we were able to help contribute to that. Mark, to that point tickets even for the viewing parties have sold out in minutes. Do you know how many tickets were sold and have you seen what they're going for right now in retail? No, I know they were sold out. Tyler and Rick, do we know how many tickets we sold for the, how many? 31,000. 31,000 for each game and sold out. 20 minutes sellout and I think, what, $15 a ticket, was it? So, look, we're glad that our fans can all share in this together. We'll come to Eric in the front. There's so much of the conversation around the labor and economic situation has been that situations such as what you've built here are not necessarily sustainable over the long term. How sustainable do you feel what you've built here is? You want to take a shot at that? Sure. Yeah, it's super important to us. I mean, in every move we make, we want to try to win tonight. That's Murph's mantra. It has been for years. But we have to keep one eye on the present and then one eye on the future in every move that we make. And in every trade, we have to think about that. and there are trade-offs for what you can do to help the team today and then what that looks like going forward. And so we invest a lot of minutes in acquisition, development, like Mark said earlier, and so we've got to make sure that that pipeline is very strong. That's our foundation. And so making sure this is sustainable is a core to one of Mark's tenets that he talked about when he first bought the team many years ago. But without systemic change, Mark, do you think you can keep this going? Did you say with or without? If everything stays pat. Look, this has been our goal for 22 seasons to compete. And, you know, that said, I think the system that is being proposed, which is similar to other leagues in terms of a revenue-sharing system, not only will, you know, help us compete, but more importantly, you know, all of the teams with lower payrolls to, and which is something else I think the fans want. Is there a problem on the left? Mark. Since we're kind of talking about market sizes, as you well know, Milwaukee's the smallest MLB market in terms of population and media market. But can you speak to how the fan support here, both in the city and the region, sort of allows you to maximize what you are able to do? Yeah, we've talked about this in less formal settings. The fan support, the sponsorship support, the support from our leaders in the community and the state has allowed us to i used to use the words punch above our weight and uh you know the payroll and whatnot you know reflects that you know we still with with some of the metrics you point out i think we still have among the smallest media revenues including this year but we're able to get to a you know a number 19 or number 20 type out of 30 team payroll because of that support that we get, and we put all of our resources back into the team, and it's the hard work of everybody who's here, including some of the business people over there, and everybody working together to make it all happen. We're in the third row in the middle. Hi, Mark. One more, at least, about the market size. I'm curious. We're going to hear about how small the market is a lot over the next week-ish. Is that a point of pride? Is it an identity you embrace, or do you chafe at the constant small market brewer's designation? Rick Schlesinger can confirm when I first got here, I told Rick, who was even then the lead business person, a little more gray hair with distress now, and aging like a fine wine. And I said the two things I didn't want to hear was, you know, we're too small or we can't do this. And I actually kept trying to say we were a mid-market team, even though clearly we weren't. And now I would say because of everybody's efforts, if you want to cast a demographic, we sort of cast like a sort of a bottom mid-market team. But definitely I think the people is what makes a difference here. Ron. So Matt, did the rule changes three years ago impact the way you built the team and made trades and acquisitions and signings? Yeah, I mean, we're always trying to stay nimble with the rules, and we have a lot of people that put a lot of minutes into that, making sure we optimize every move that we can make. So yeah, any time that there's a rule change, we're going to pay attention and try to adjust accordingly. projecting and figuring that small ball and base to base would become a better chance of success with these rules than the bash your way to titles yeah i think that's i mean it's certainly part of it it's kind of our brand with with murph as well um we've we've run out a lot of different shapes of teams over the years here that have had some success um and this one i think kind of identifies with the way you're talking about sort of the rules have shifted and we try to adjust accordingly as well. And for Murph, as you look at all 30 teams, what's your analysis on why you've been able to succeed and what has gone right here compared to some of the other similar small markets? You know, I think every team has a challenge. It's not easy to run a baseball team. And interestingly, when I first bought the club, looking at it as an investment matter, I I said to Wendy Sealy, well, there's just four line items we have to pay attention to. He said, no, that's not true. And the very first year when the outfield grass was bare at the start of the season because the tundra was frozen here, not only in Lambeau Field, I learned there was a lot to do that went into running a baseball team. And I think it's, look, we just, every day we try to just make things better. and that's the broadly speaking we every day and uh matt i mean i don't want to put you on the spot but how many days off would you say you have a year it's like christmas morning like a nice little window for me but it's great i mean i love that so it's not it's a it's my life's passion so i i don't consider it work i consider it awesome come to the left side in the fourth row uh for Matt Matt, what have you seen from Brandon Woodruff this week, and what are some of the factors you're considering in whether or not to put him on the roster? Yeah, Woody looked really good the other day. We're still working on what that I think could look like for our roster. We have a decision to make. Still going to spend some minutes talking with him and, again, the rest of our group there. Look, I mean, transparently, I mean, obviously this is a guy that's one of the most successful, dominant, big game pitchers i've ever been around um and there are also some rule constraints that we're having to work through with uh the health etc that that have to be consideration because he just hasn't pitched in the game since july 4th and so uh a lot of unknowns there but you know obviously the the good version of that guy is somebody you'd love to have on your roster or the far right Tyler Yeah, Matt Murph has his own style of dealing with players and and style of play um what makes the players connect so seamlessly with him and do you sort of do work on the front end to make sure that they'll fit with this kind of style of play and manager yeah Mark and I talk about this a lot I mean just having that that um collaborative voice I think Murph is a huge part of that when we acquire anybody um via trade frankly even during the draft he'll have some thoughts because he knows everybody it's like six degrees of Pat Murphy he just kind of knows everyone um and so I love talking with Murph about who fits in this room. Sometimes we have to take on distressed assets here, and he's great about that. The guys that were available or cast-offs in other places have come in here and flourished. So I think having that input from Murph when we acquire those types of guys is really, really important. Go to Julian up on the left side. Mark, your success as a club, do you think that strengthens or weakens the argument for or what we talk about as salary cap? I think the fact that two teams like the Brewers and the Rays, and we hear all the time that we play baseball the right way, that it's exciting to watch. I think they probably hear the same. I think that's good for baseball. And so, you know, whatever that means relative to revenue systems or otherwise, I think if you have a more competitive set, you know, you can have more exciting baseball. Alana? Mark and Matt, congratulations. Along the lines of what Tyler was asking when it comes to Murph, this is a guy that is very highly regarded. You talk to all of the players, and they have a special story when it comes to Murph. How do you think he particularly relates to not just the 26-man but the 40-man? Because he seems like he's also a psychologist and knows how to connect the right way with each respective player who have very different personalities and very different backgrounds. From my perspective, I think you nailed it. I mean, he has a really good line of communication to all of our players. And even, like you said, it's not just the 26 guys, it's the 40 guys. So even if they're not here, he's going to send them a text. He's going to check in. He's always talking to Rick Swede, our staff in AAA, to make sure everybody feels connected. That's something that's really important to him. And I'd say Matt makes sure everybody feels connected on his side, which is one of the reasons we have everybody here for this and for this whole run, actually. Russell, fourth row in the middle. Matt, we talk about player development all the time in baseball. When you have so many guys that might be on your second or third club, how do you get that buy-in with the messaging so guys believe they can come here and be the best version of themselves? Yeah, I think a lot goes into that. Certainly it's player by player. You try not to just hit them in the face with something right away. You just kind of say, hi, how are you? Who are you? Get them comfortable with your environment, and then hopefully they trust the results that we've had here for a while to just make sure, hey, we just want what's best for you. and we try to do that with every guy and it's a different message to different people and our guys our coaches do a fantastic job with the way they connect with our players when they're brand new here and then Mark, you've been more accessible than many of your peers I know a lot of that has to do with your team playing the World Series but why is it important for you to get out in front of the camera to talk to the media to have your fan base here, for me why is that important if you're asking why it's important to talk to media and i think we want to um you know the media is essential for us to be able to communicate with our fans you know we can get 40,000 people into the ballpark here but you know we want to communicate to you know millions of people around the country who are fans of our team and i think i think it helps to hear from from the owner as well as just the manager of the head of baseball ops Jesse Mark it seems like the best organizations at this in this day and age in baseball have an openness of communication meaning the intern, if he has an idea with R&D to the coaches, it all kind of works. Would you say that's developed here over time? Do you think that's been a huge factor in the success here? You want to talk about it from a baseball side and I'll talk about it from a business side? Sure. Having been an intern, yeah. I mean, yeah, I can walk you through that. It's awesome. I mean, I was so blessed to be an intern in a couple different places. I don't know if that's a blessing. That's probably not the right word for that. a little pain along the way, but no, I mean, incredibly fortunate with the respect to having somebody that would listen. Like you're saying, being able to sit there, I still remember John Hart coming over and sitting on a couch right next to me. I'm like, oh my God, John Hart actually cares what I have to say. And I don't know if he did or didn't, but that meant a lot to me. And so I've tried to carry a lot of that forward myself. And I'd say Rick Tussinger and Marty Ronsky run a very flat business group, and ideas are welcome from interns. People who are with us one or two years get given a lot of responsibility. And a lot of the creativity you see around the ballpark bubbles up from some of the younger people, not the old folks like me. I will do three more. We'll go to Evan near the top, and then we'll come down to Gabe and Jared. Mark, you talk about changing the revenue system. The players, even some today, have said they really don't want the union leadership. It seems relatively unified. How do you change their minds as owners, and are you worried that doing so will create a lot of misgames? I think that relative to the evolution of this idea, which is in all the leagues now in the U.S. other than ours, is something that a lot of time, Matt used the word minutes, a lot of minutes will be spent between both sides. I actually think, notwithstanding sort of the staking out the positions, there's been good dialogue so far in the labor discussions. And, you know, Rob and his team, Rob, the commissioner, will take the lead on that. Gabe. Yeah, Matt, the word culture probably gets tossed around a little too much in baseball or business or whatnot. But with you in the Rays, it seems real on both ends. What does that look like to you? How do you know when you have it, and I guess where does good culture come from in an organization? I mean, it helps to have good players, I would say. When they perform well, obviously, the vibes are good, but I've been in situations where it's not good. I was a Devil Ray, so I know what it feels like to pick first multiple times. And to have that evolution, I feel like one of the important things that we learned there and obviously have tried to carry on here is just like there's light at the end of the tunnel. like no matter how bad it is and we have it really really good here thanks to him and a lot of people that i work with um that there's optimism they have people here that are willing to commit um to the vision and uh and want to be a part of it and and when you have those type of people special things can happen like we've had this year we'll finish with Jared on the far right second round Mark during your time you've obviously been very pretty aggressive in your sort of baseball ops spending the size of your front office technology scouting how would you assess the return on investment you've gotten from some of those you know from those expenditures over the years is that for me or for Matt well let me let me jump in on that we you know one of the things i think Matt i would say Matt has been very efficient in how we've spent like we you know they have FIQ numbers for the league and we're sort of right in the middle right in the middle of 30 teams in terms of what we spend on baseball ops and try to run the business that way by the way across the board and you know it's similar to how we you know we can all talk about market size but um we try to calibrate our expenditures accordingly so i'd say you know 15th in uh give or take in baseball ops expense and 19th in player expense and most wins in baseball the last two years i think we're we're doing a pretty damn good job all right mark matt appreciate the time good luck this week I appreciate it.