Counsell mum on future with Brewers: 'That ain't for tonight'

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers’ season was not 20 minutes in the rear view mirror before Craig Counsell was asked the question that will dominate the coming weeks.

Is there any sort of timeline on your decision for your future?

“That ain't for tonight, man,” Counsell said.

Counsell had hoped to delay the questions a little longer, but a 5-2 loss to the D-backs in Game 2 of the National League Wild Card Series at American Family Field on Wednesday night finished a sweep and sent the Brewers into what could be a franchise-altering offseason as core players like ace starter Corbin Burnes and shortstop Willy Adames head into one final cycle of arbitration.

Of all the items on the Brewers’ offseason to-do list, none has greater consequences than the uncertain future of Counsell, 53, whose contract expires at the end of this month. Truth is, no one knows what he’ll do. Counsell’s players are curious, but everyone from Burnes to Christian Yelich say they don’t know whether Counsell will manage in Milwaukee next season, manage somewhere else, or perhaps not at all.

Not even Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio knows. And he gets asked a lot.

“All the time,” Attanasio said. “But you have to ask him. Of course we want him to be here. Of course we can’t imagine him not being here.”

Counsell is the NL’s longest-tenured manager, the most successful manager in Brewers history by victories and postseason appearances -- five in the past six seasons, with three division titles -- and a hometown manager at that, since he was raised in Milwaukee and spent his summers at County Stadium while his father, John, ran the Brewers’ community relations department.

Counsell still lives in Whitefish Bay, Wis., where he and his wife, Michelle, raised four children. Their two boys are both playing college baseball, Brady at Minnesota and Jack at Michigan. Their daughters, Finley and Rowan, are active in high school sports at the same school their dad once attended.

For those reasons, it is difficult to envision him managing anywhere else. On the other hand, those could also be reasons to step away from managing for a time, should he desire.

Or, Counsell might covet another challenge. You might have heard the Mets have a managerial opening, and that their new president of baseball operations, David Stearns, used to hold the same position in Milwaukee.

“Couns’ been a huge part of why this place is the way it is now,” said Yelich, the only position player who has been with the Brewers throughout their recent run. “We haven’t been able to take it the whole way and win a championship, but being in a small market and being a consistent winner and having a good, competitive team every year that’s either in the playoffs or missed it by one game, it’s tough to do.

“He’s a huge reason why this place is like that now and he’s built a great culture here. I love playing for him and I hope that continues.”

Counsell played six of the final eight seasons of a 16-year Major League career in Milwaukee before spending parts of three years in the front office, exploring every aspect of what it is to be a general manager. But he belonged on the field, and when the Brewers followed a second-half slump in 2014 with a 5-18 start in ‘15, Attanasio and then-GM Doug Melvin convinced him to take over in the dugout. The Brewers made a series of trades that year to stock the system with younger talent and then went 73-89 during Counsell’s first full season in 2016.

Since then, almost every game has mattered. The Brewers have played 1,033 games in the regular season since the start of 2017, and have been mathematically in the race for a postseason berth for all but two.

“I think he’s earned the right to take some time and make a decision for himself and his family,” Yelich said.

Brewers GM Matt Arnold and Counsell have discussed Counsell’s contract situation since before Spring Training, when Counsell indicated he preferred to wait until the season plays out before making any decisions.

In August, Attanasio broached the topic again, and Counsell again deferred the decision.

“We decided we had a chance to do something special this year, and we were going to just focus on that and pick up the conversation once the season was over,” Attanasio said. “I think that conversation will be open-ended, and we'll see how he wants to handle it. I think he has earned that right.

“Clearly we want him back, and we'll see what he wants to do.”

Once the managerial matter is settled, the Brewers will have other business. They’ll decide on contract options for productive but costly players like Mark Canha ($11.5 million club option) and Wade Miley ($10 million mutual option). Then they’ll ponder the future of players heading into their final year of arbitration: Burnes, Adames, Adrian Houser, Rowdy Tellez, Eric Lauer and Brandon Woodruff, whose situation is complicated by the shoulder injury that kept him out of the postseason. Woodruff will visit Dr. Barry Meister next week in Dallas for a second opinion and said Wednesday night that it’s too early to know whether his injury will keep him out for any of 2024.

The Brewers’ free agents include unsung catcher Victor Caratini and Trade Deadline addition Carlos Santana, who indicated that he’d love to come back.

“There’s a lot of guys in here whose futures are up in the air right now,” Brewers closer Devin Williams said.

The trickiest might be Burnes, who earned $10.01 million after losing an arbitration hearing and will cost more after posting a 3.39 ERA while reaching 200 strikeouts for the third straight season. The Brewers refused offers for Burnes at this year’s Trade Deadline because they thought they had a team to make a deep postseason run. This winter, the calculus is a little different.

“I’m sure I’ll start thinking about it in the next couple of days,” Burnes said. “You think about the group that you’ve got in here and think, ‘Damn, if we could run it back, we think it would end differently.’ But you don’t really know.

“Those are conversations that will be had over the next couple of weeks. It’s just tough when it’s ended.”