Do not let Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio fool you about Craig Counsell

The Chicago Cubs came out of nowhere and hired Craig Counsell away from the Milwaukee Brewers.

Milwaukee’s favorite son has now become the enemy.

He has lost the community according to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio.

Attanasio is trying to paint the picture that Counsell did a heel turn on his hometown.

Counsell’s decision to manage the rival Cubs hurts, but it is not like he upped and hit Mark with a chair shot on the way out.

Attanasio’s years of shoestring budgets that asked Counsell to make chicken salad out of chicken excrement must have worn on Craig.

Counsell taking the higher offer is another example that Attanasio is always going to make a half-hearted offer knowing full well he will be outbid. Then he can turn around, say he tried, and blame baseball’s economic system.

Attanasio did this with C.C. Sabathia. He did it with Prince Fielder.

This is an owner that hides under the small market spending limit excuse. Letting Sabathia and Fielder walk for free agent riches is not the end of the world. Those contracts can age poorly and can set a franchise like the Milwaukee Brewers back years.

Ponying up a couple of millions more to pay Craig Counsell would be a drop in the bucket considering Mark has had no problem giving big money to pitchers like Jeff Suppan and Kyle Lohse (and eventually paying them to go away).

If he cannot afford to pay Counsell, then he either needs to ask more of his rich buddies to join the ownership group or sell the team.

This is a guy asking Wisconsin taxpayers to help renovate a stadium that opened 22 years ago, so maybe he needs to stop claiming poor.

Now, it is time to move forward, and it is time for Attanasio to show he is willing to go all in to get to the World Series and win it.

This strategy of having bites at the postseason apple is not going to cut it anymore.

Especially since the Cubs are hell-bent on taking back the division with their unlimited financial resources, they have the spending capabilities and the prospects to never give it back.

Losing Counsell is not going to close the contention window. He helped the Milwaukee Brewers win on the margins, but the club still has plenty of talent to compete for the NL Central.

They got one more season of Corbin Burnes leading the rotation. Instead of trading him, this is the time to push the chips to the center and go for the World Series.

It does not mean going out and spending recklessly.

It just means it is time to do what the club did in 2011 when the Brewers traded for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum. They added Francisco Rodriguez at the trade deadline.

The only reason the Crew came up short that year was bad defense and Marcum running out of gas in the postseason.

Learn the lesson from that run, get a couple of pieces that still have team control, and go for broke.