Pat Murphy’s Managerial SUCCESS Forces Milwaukee Brewers to Abandon Rickie Weeks Succession Plan

Pat Murphy’s Managerial SUCCESS Forces Milwaukee Brewers to Abandon Rickie Weeks Succession Plan

The Brewers make two interesting moves on Thursday, including one that no one saw coming. You are Locked On Brewers, your daily Milwaukee Brewers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hey everybody, good to have you along. Chuck Freeman, longtime sports cer here in the state of Wisconsin, proud host of Lockdown Brewers, part of Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day. We are your team every day. Coming up on the show today, well, there goes the succession plan. Ricky Weekes gets bumped up to the front office. A surprise move. Also, Brandon Woodruff, he accepts the qualifying offer. The Brewers could be on the hook for a lot of money. Price Terra loses out on the silver slugger. We’ll talk about all that coming up here on Lockdown Brewers. This episode is brought to you by the great folks at FanDuel. FanDuel. Right now, you bet five bucks, your bet wins. You’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app today and get started, especially with the big weekend coming up in in football. All right, Ricky Weeks. This news, you know, I went back and forth. Ricky Weekes, Brandon Woodruff. I think both big stories, right, dropped at the end of the day. And I and I waited a little bit till later in the night just in case the Brewers on the opening day of free agency would make a splash. Stupid of me to do that, right? All is quiet on Brewers Boulevard. But Ricky Weekes, associate manager last two years, now will be the special assistant in baseball operations and domestic international scouting. H I’m not one for big titles, right? I’m not one for titles. All I know is they brought Ricky Weeks out two seasons ago when they introduced Pat Murphy. Like these two guys were arm and arm running this team. It was Murphy’s job and like Ricky Weekes was the manager in waiting, right? Because and I felt that was a little disrespectful to Murphy. He’s the manager. Why do you need Ricky Weekes there? Right? I mean, it was like, well, as soon as Murphy screws up or fans don’t like him or this team is losing, well, we got Ricky right there to take over. So Murphy is going to kind of teach the baseball aspect of it. I mean, Ricky already knows baseball from playing it, but I mean, running a baseball team, you know, sitting at the at the the side of Murphy, he’s going to learn that end of it and he’s going to eventually take over. I felt I mean, the Brewers felt I feel that they did not think that Murphy was going to be this good. Let’s let’s face it, the Brewers, and this the Brewers fault, too. Mark Aanasio admitted it. They interviewed other candidates and they interviewed Murphy thinking, “Ah, let’s uh I would give him a the old token interview, right? He’s on the staff. Let’s give him a a token interview.” Turns out he was the guy all along. Now, that’s on Antonio. Guy’s been with the team for 10 years prior to being manager as a bench coach. And you didn’t know that guy was managerial material. Come on. I mean that’s and the guy I mean you know how how bad that makes. I mean I don’t mean to start throwing daggers at Mark Anthonyio but all the while you had the best manager right there Pat Murphy going to be two-time manager of the year in his first two tries as a full-time manager. Yet you brought him out there. You you gave him the job. He bowled you over in the interview process and which is odd because boy he I didn’t have much of a relationship with uh Murphy. It was like hello hi and we talked some baseball and that was it. You never knew that this guy had managerial capabilities and he interviewed him 10 years later, right? I think anybody who has an organization has their handprints. You know the guys in your organization who are manager material who are going to get a promotion and or maybe get that push and guys who you know are clueless right and have no hope. You know these things you know the guys who are sharp. He didn’t know that Murphy had potential to be maybe not this good but manager I mean he he get was a token interview well interview Pat Murphy. So he brings Weeks and Murphy out and leads us to believe that Ricky Weeks is going to be the manager and waiting. He’s going to be the associate manager. All right, which again I thought was pretty disrespectful for Murphy or anybody in that position, right? You get a you get the job. You get you get any head coaching job. All right. Manager’s job, whatever. You should be up there. Not your assistant. Wow, this guy, you know, he’s going to be the associate manager. He’s going to be the guy right there learning from Murphy. None of us thought this Murphy was going to be this good, right? And and have uh you know, win back-to-back divisional titles and be without question manager of the year, handsdown manager of the year in baseball for that matter, not just the National League for baseball. But again, we’re on the outside looking in. Mark Anthonyio should know these things. He He’s around the team. He’s around these guys. So he they parade both of those guys out there. And Murphy comes in and all a sudden this guy’s doing a heck of a job. You know, Murphy’s in his mid60s. And I don’t know if age had something to do with it. They thought, well, maybe Murphy is just going to, you know, manage for a year. He did had the heart issue a couple of years ago and then uh you know he could just teach Ricky everything he knows about baseball about managing and making lineups and all the logistics and then Ricky could take over. But Murphy was like no. I mean he didn’t say this publicly but Murphy was like manage this baseball team. This is my shot. I don’t care how old I am. This is my shot at this job. This is my shot at it. Sure. I was interum manager at down in San Diego, but this is my opportunity right here and he’s been great, right? Let’s face it. Yeah, we’re disappointed what’s happened in the postseason. He’s been great. So Ricky came on as a bench coach and now after two seasons, Ricky no longer is the bench coach. He’s no longer the associate manager. He gets bumped up to the front office. Now bumped up, I don’t know. A couple of different ways you could look at this. with weeks. Uh they could look at it like, well, Murphy is going into the final year of his contract, but he’s not giving up this post anytime soon. In fact, they’re probably going to extend him, right? You would think they’d extend him on a contract here in the off season. So, why do we have Ricky down there as the bench coach uh when Murphy is going to be a guy? And Murphy might have said as well now that he’s earned that from the organization, two-time manager of the year, 97 wins, that he gets he gets to call a couple of shots on his own here. He might have went up to the front office and said, you know, I this is the way I want to distribute the power on this team. I want this guy to have this because they’re not hiring a replacement for weeks. They want other guys on the coaching staff to have different roles. And maybe that’s what that’s what Murphy wants. He’s earned that. But going into this job, he didn’t. They told him Ricky Weekes is going to be your assistant coach, your associate manager. They’ve scrapped that associate manager. They’re not hiring anybody for that replacement. This is Murphy’s ship right now. So with weeks they bumped him up to the front office or if you want to call it a bump up or what. Now I don’t know if Ricky’s ever going to manage his team ever again. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know if he’s going to manage somewhere else, but I think this is a situation where Murphy is just so good of a manager that and maybe Murphy wanted to do things on the bench, like I said, and and didn’t want Ricky as his assistant coach, but rather have a few other chefs in the kitchen, guys doing different roles. That’s the way you know it’s working for Murphy, whatever it is. So, and then the obviously management approached Ricky and maybe Ricky was unhappy. Maybe Ricky thought, well, I don’t see myself as being a manager here. I don’t know what my role is. I you know the and maybe all the while and I’m speculating maybe Murphy was asking other guys other coaches on the staff hey their opinions of things and Weeks is there and Weeks might be saying well how come you’re not asking me I’m your assistant coach why are you asking everybody else so it sounds like Weeks wanted to make the move and the organization wanted to make a move. They kept Ricky. They think enough of Ricky to keep him in the organization and they created this role for him. And like I said, I don’t know if he’s ever going to coach again, manage again, go to a different organization. Who knows? But all I know is Murphy deserves to call any shot he did. And I don’t know if this was his call, okay? Because he’s the manager of the team. Um, but whatever. Um, but I didn’t see this coming. I did not see this coming, but they keep weeks on the payroll and who knows and I know I I’ve read somewhere on Twitter that hey Ricky great that you’re staying in the organization and all that. We don’t know anything about Ricky Weeks as a manager. So I can’t say well he’s manager material or not managerial material. We don’t know, right? He was the associate manager to Murphy. But what do we know about Ricky Weekes the manager? We know about him as a player, right? We don’t know anything about him as a manager. I don’t know anything about him is how he is in the front office. I know the special assistant role, that’s what council did have prior to becoming manager. But and the organization is going to say all nice things about Ricky. Well, you know, he’s a guy who can manage. He could be in the front office. He could do anything. He’s very versatile. So, no matter what, they’re going to say some nice things about it. So, at the end of the day, Murphy’s calling his shot, I believe, and he’s going to distribute a say on game day to other guys in the coaching staff. That’s the way he obviously wants to do it. And he’s earned that two-time manager of the year. And if they need a manager down the road, we’ll worry about that. But I think right now, we’re all in agreement. Pat Murphy should be running this ship for the foreseeable future and a contract extension. He’s going to I know final year of his contract and managers when they go in that final year, you know, there’s speculation, oh, is he going to leave? Just like with Craig Council. Now, I don’t think Murphy’s going to leave anywhere. But indeed, in this off season, one of the priorities, give that man Pat Murphy a contract extension. Give him a contract extension. So, and with Ricky Weekes, I don’t know. That’s that’s professional sports. We’ll see if he stays in the front office, stays in the organization, maybe goes somewhere else. Who knows? Who knows? Um but, you know, that’s the that’s between him and the Milwaukee Brewers. But I do know I did not like the look initially when Murphy I mean when Murphy was first hired. We talked just about as much about Ricky Weeks as we did Murphy because we knew about Ricky Weeks from him being a player here right when he came up in the in the 2000s. Good player, right? solid player, hard-nosed player, good player with the Brewers, but we don’t know anything about him as a bench coach, right? We don’t know. So, I don’t know. Maybe the Brewers organization could have done this, too. They didn’t see him ever being a bench coach or being a manager with their team. Maybe they they looked at it after a couple of years and say, “Well, I don’t know. We gave Ricky a shot at this bench coach. I don’t know if he’s cut out for being a manager. Maybe he at least in our organization, maybe elsewhere, but they could have looked at it and said, “Well, not only is Murphy going to stay here long term, but maybe Ricky Weekes is better suited in the front office and helping us that way than as a bench coach.” Could be. Hey, he’s still in the organization. It’s not like they fired him, right? They still value Ricky. But whatever happened there, obviously the Brewers said that Weeks in so many words was not happy being a bench coach and the Brewers obviously there was conversations on their end of what to do with Weeks, but they put him in the front office. And again, who knows down the line? This is all speculation. This is all speculation, but Ricky Weeks, good guy, smart baseball man, but I think the Brewers at the end of the day see that uh right now to best help this team, they’d rather have him in the front office. All right, coming up next, Brandon Woodruff. That was the other bombshell. There’s a couple of bombshells that dropped in a couple of minutes. of each other here uh during the day. We’ll get to that next. Chuck Freeman here on Lockdown Brewers. Lockdown Brewers part of the Lockdown podcast network. We are your team every day. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel is America’s number one sports book for a reason. They got terrific bonuses like the one that they’re having right now. New customers. You get $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Again, FanDuel, they’re giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, head to FanDuel.com and play your game with FanDuel. Their live betting is fantastic. Maybe uh on Thursday night, you like the Denver Broncos. They got down early 7 nothing. You got a good price on the Broncos, go for it. You can do that in FanDuel. Their live betting is so easy to maneuver around. It is fantastic. With all these sports going around, there’s no better time than the present to get involved with FanDuel. And even you miss the start of the game. That’s what live betting is. You miss the start of the game and you miss the opening tip off. You got to take out the garbage. You got to do this. You got to make some dinner or whatever. Hey, that’s what that live betting for. And if your your team that you want gets down early on, well, better in your case as well because you’ll get better odds. New customers, $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. FanDuel.com. Sign up, play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Jack Freeman here on Lockdown Brewers. And by the way, this podcast is uh this boy, the podcaster, we always say, “Hey, where can you get the podcast?” They’re just coming across us on YouTube. We’re also on all these audio platforms like Google, Spotify, Apple, all the audio platforms out there. We’re the number one brewers podcast on the internet because you great brewer fans out there. And of course, if you’re already listening us in the audio platforms, our growing YouTube page, search Locked On Brewers, you come into our Brewer studio at the Brewer Memorabilia, and uh we broadcast here the 30-minute show of Locked On Brewers. All right, the second order of business for the Milwaukee Brewers, Brandon Woodruff accepts the qualifying offer of $20 million. So, in essence, they’ll pay him well qualifying offer of 22 million to be exact. In essence, they’ll pay him 32 million as of right now to pitch on this staff. Now, he’s got until November 18th to decide whether or not he’s going to take the qualifying offer. He’s already got the $10 million in his back pocket from the option being declined on his two-year $17 million deal that he signed. So, he’s got the $10 million option already in his back pocket. So, if he decides to accept the qualifying offer, he’ll have 32 million coming in his way. the 10 do the 10 million which is actually on last year’s payroll and then the 22 million of this year 32 million now I don’t look at it that way I do not look at it well you know the 10 million was on last year’s books and the 22 million is on this year’s books I still look at it they’re paying the guy 32 million and I get it they’re paying him 32 million the 10 million they have to pay him either way but still 32 million which would make him the richest player on the st on the team. As it is, he’s the second richest player if he accepts the qualifying offer behind Yelich, a couple of million behind him. Now, here’s what I think on this. Uh again, he could accept it one-year deal, 32 million, or he could decline the qualifying offer. And couldn’t he sign a multi-year deal with the Milwaukee Brewers? Although the word you’re hearing, I mean, I see some places where it’s like 2 years 35 million for Woodruff, which I think is astoundingly low because I’ve seen 3 years and 75 million on the market value for Woodruff out there as well. So, we’ll see. 3 years 7075 million, which I I’ve declared before that’s just way too much for this guy. We love Woody, but 3 years 75 million for a guy coming off a shoulder uh is a lot. Now, especially, I would think that the Brewers have some pretty good intel on this that they feel that Woodruff is not going to accept that qualifying offer. Therefore, they had have to pay him the 20 million. Remember, he’s not 100% right now anyway. Didn’t finish the season. They say he’s going to be ready for training camp and all that spring training, but again, we’re talking about paying a guy 32 million, 10 million to go away, 32 million if he accepts the qualifying offer for a guy who we like to think he’s coming back in spring training next year. But the Brewers are rolling the dice because they obviously have some intel thinking that there’s another team out there or a couple. They’ve heard some whispers through the grape vine that there as a team out there are going to sign him for a multi-year deal. In which case, if it’s a certain amount of of financial uh a certain amount of uh financial commitment from that other team, they’re even going to get a better draft pick. They’re going to get a draft pick out of this. It depends on how much Woody signs for. So, they feel they’re going to gamble right now that Woodruff is going to decline the $20 million qualifying offer and either maybe resign with them. Again, we played this game a couple years ago with Woodruff, not this exact game, but similar um or that Woodruff is going to sign with another team and the Brewers will get that draft pick. They’re rolling the dice on the 20 million here. We’ll see. Sometimes it backs rarely does it, but sometimes it backfires on the team. Sometimes it backs fires on the player as well. Should Woodruff, a guy coming off shoulder injury, shoulder surgery, and who didn’t finish the year, can he accept would if you’re him at 32, do you accept the 22 million and say, “Man, I got the 10 million here at the 30 the 22 million. I got $32 million coming my way and play it out for another season and then maybe bank on next year hitting the jackpot at 33 or do you say no to the qualifying offer and roll the dice and try to get yourself a threeyear $75 million deal? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how this is going to work. If I’m the Brewers right now, I’m a little nervous about it, be honest with you. I mean, but they obviously have some intel. I don’t want to be paying Woodro $32 million. The 10 million you have to pay. It’s baked in for last year’s salary uh last the contract that expired. But man, you got to pay him another 20 million. That’s going to hurt you in free agency, free agent signings, especially for a guy you don’t know is going to be healthy or not. So, we’ll see how this works. Yeah, I’ve seen two years 50 million for him. Very, very interesting. So right now, at least as of right now, the Brewers on the hook for paying Woodruff $32 million, making him the highest paid player on the team. Yelich is at 24. Look at these salaries. Yelich at 24 million. Conurus at 11 million. Geralta at 8 million. I mean that’s a that’s that’s a owner friendly payroll right there for a team that won 97 games 20 you know would have if it’s 32 billion then Yelage at 24 Contras at 11 Peralta at 8 and then it goes down from there pretty amazing pretty pretty amazing so we’ll see November 18th is the deadline for Peralta uh for Woodruff to make his big decision. All right, we come back, Brewers lose out on a postseason award and uh we’ll talk about that coming up next as we head down the home stretch. Chuck Freebit here on Lockdown Brewers. Price picks. Price picks, you know, we make decisions every day in our lives on on what to do. And price picks, you pick more or less on players, more or less on players, and you could win. The more players you pick, the more the better of a chance you have as a at a bigger jackpot at the end of the day. pick more or less at at least two player stats. Maybe or more or less on Josh Allen passing or more or less on Jordan Love passing or Caleb Williams or you name it, uh Justin Herbert, rushing yards maybe. Well, it takes less than 60 seconds to make your lineup and you can play anywhere that Price Picks operates. Uh don’t miss any of the excitement of this sports season whether you’re following the NFL or the NBA or both. You can combine both. The new stacks feature is a game changer. You can pick more on Steph’s threes, points, assists in the same lineup. But you got to download the price picks app today. Use that promo code locked on MLB. You’ll get 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Locked on MLB. 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Price picks. It is good to be right with price picks. Yes, price picks. Again, the more players you choose, the more cash that could come your way on prize picks. It is good to be right. Chuck Freeman here on Lockdown Brewers. Brewers did lose out with on the silver slugger award. Uh Bryce Tang was up for the silver slugger and despite that big August and what he did this year, uh Catel Marte beat him out at a 283 and 28 home runs. I guess you can’t argue on that. Uh, Terra, I still think is better defensively. I feel ter should get some MVP votes. Again, I feel some like some of this is just based on stance and not on, you know, how I like to vote on stuff like this, clutch moments. And we see the Brewers play every day and I’ve seen enough of Perang play this year where I know how clutch that guy was. I know wasn’t good in the postseason, but we’re not talking about it. The silver slugger doesn’t have to do with the postseason. It’s the regular season. So Marte’s great player too. There’s no doubt about it. No shame losing the Marte, but Terang I feel should get some votes for MVP on this team, right? 97 wins, best record in baseball. I mean, has there ever been a case even like where a team with that kind of win total doesn’t have a player gets some MVP votes in the voting? Interesting. Just thought of that. No, free agency again. Day one of free agency. I I did this podcast late at night thinking, ah, just in case something drops, nothing drops and we play on to round to uh day two coming up on Friday and into the weekend and into the offseason. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us on Lockdown Brewers. I appreciate it. You can also hit me up on my Twitter account. You have any questions, I’ll always get back to you. Chuck Freeman, F- Ru N. And of course, all the audio platforms are on the the podcast and the YouTube page. Make sure you sure you subscribe on YouTube because if the Brewers have breaking major news, we drop videos and let you know of any news happening on our Locked On Brewers YouTube page. But that’s going to do it. Have yourself a great weekend everybody. My name is Chuck Freeman. Locked on Brewers, part of Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day.

Milwaukee Brewers shake up their coaching structure as Rickie Weeks moves from associate manager to front office role. Is Pat Murphy finally getting the autonomy he’s earned after back-to-back division titles?

Chuck Freimund breaks down the surprising organizational changes, questioning why the Brewers initially positioned Weeks as a manager-in-waiting to begin with.. Murphy has proven himself with two terrific years.

The discussion shifts to Brandon Woodruff’s risky $22 million qualifying offer acceptance, which could make him the team’s highest-paid player at $32 million total despite coming off shoulder surgery. Freimund analyzes the gamble for both sides and speculates whether the Brewers expect Woodruff to decline and sign elsewhere.

Key topics include Murphy’s need for a contract extension, the Brewers’ remarkably owner-friendly payroll structure, and Brice Turang’s Silver Slugger snub despite his clutch performances throughout the season.

Tune in for critical analysis of how these moves reshape Milwaukee’s future and whether the front office is finally giving Murphy the respect he deserves.

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