MILWAUKEE BREWERS

Attanasio focused on process, not wins and losses

Tom Haudricourt

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio does an interview at the team's "On Deck" fan fest Sunday afternoon at the Wisconsin Center.

Anyone who has come to know Milwaukee Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio will tell you how much he enjoys life when his team wins.

With the Brewers in the midst of a large-scale rebuilding plan, Attanasio has learned to shift his focus, even more so than general manager David Stearns and manager Craig Counsell, he believes.

“Probably, of the three of us, I’m probably the least concerned about wins right now,” Attanasio said Sunday during a break at the “Brewers On Deck” fan festival at the Wisconsin Center.

Attanasio then smiled and quickly added, “By the way, there will come a time when I’m very focused on wins.”

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That time is not 2017, the second full season of the Brewers’ rebuild. The team went 73-89 last season – better than expected while in so-called “tanking” mode – but there is no guarantee there will be more victories this time around.

So, what exactly does Attanasio want to see to assure him the Brewers are headed in the right direction?

“You want to see players who pleasantly surprised us last year continue to perform,” he said. “You want to see players who disappointed us a little turn it around. And you want to see the team pull together with the energy they had last year and maybe make fewer mistakes.

“In my mind, if we have all of that, what (number of games) we win isn’t really paramount.”

Attanasio realizes Counsell does not share that sentiment. No manager does. Counsell manages every day to win that particular game, one of the many things the owner likes about his manager, who was given a three-year extension through 2020 in November.

“Craig is really focused on the won-lost record,” Attanasio said. “He doesn’t want to hear another interview where I say I don’t care how many games we win. That’s why he wanted David to get the back end of the bullpen filled out (with the signings of Neftali Feliz and Joba Chamberlain).

“And it’s true. While you’re trying to develop players, if you keep losing games at the end, that’s deflating for everybody. Everybody focuses now on winning fewer games so you get a higher draft pick. But, if you’re going to truly develop players, you have to keep moving on a continuum where everybody is getting better.”

Attanasio admits it hasn’t been easy to watch games at times. In fact, he said he clicked off the television more times last season while watching from home in Los Angeles than he could remember since becoming the owner in 2005.

Attanasio came to realize that being caught in the middle – winning 80-some games but not making the playoffs – was of small consolation. So, he committed to the teardown begun by former general manager Doug Melvin and continued by Stearns with the understanding that there are no shortcuts to success.

“It is essential that we do this rebuild correctly,” he said. “If we get too hung up on wins and losses – we’ve got to give Orlando Arcia some leash at shortstop, for example. I want to make sure we do the right things.

“Now, Craig has let me know if players aren’t doing the right things, they are going to sit down. He’s not on this ‘kumbaya’ won-loss thing. So, if guys are not doing what he thinks it takes to win baseball games, they are not going to play. I think that’s probably a good balance.”

Attanasio is well aware that Brewers fans want to know when this rebuild will yield a playoff-caliber team. Truth be told, he’d like to know that as well. But, shy of an accurate crystal ball, there is no way to know, so you just stay with the plan and hope the trend line creeps upward.

“It depends on the development of players, the health of players and then how we fill in around these guys when players become available,” Attanasio said.

In the interim, that doesn’t mean you don’t give a good effort or accept losing when you should have won the game you just played. So, Attanasio expects the Brewers to continue putting up a good fight even when outmanned in terms of talent.

“At the end of last year, you can look at some of (Chicago Cubs manager) Joe Maddon’s interviews,” Attanasio said. “The Cubs were really good and Maddon wasn’t taking his foot off the accelerator because he didn’t want a letdown. And we played them really tough.

“Craig was looking at how tough we played the Cardinals and Cubs and the Pirates, and that’s why he is encouraged that we can be pretty good this year.”