Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Ryan Braun says Brewers were “fighting the negativity” under former manager Ken Macha

ken macha brewers

Ryan Braun talked to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about how excited he is for this season after the Brewers added Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum to the rotation and changed managers, and in doing so revealed just how bad things got in the clubhouse under former manager Ken Macha:

My confidence never wavered but overall the baseball experience last year was not positive. Ultimately, I think we were all fighting the negativity and the overall situation we were dealing with. I always try to be as positive and optimistic as I can but the whole environment and atmosphere, not necessarily with the players, was negative. It felt worse than it was. It felt like we lost 100 games.

Braun then discussed how different things already feel under new manager Ron Roenicke:

It’s a thousand times different now. The whole atmosphere, the whole environment is much more positive. There’s just an aura of excitement. When you walk in here, you can literally feel the difference. We can all sense it and it’s exciting. The more positive your work environment is, the more conducive it is to accomplishing anything you can to be successful. He was really positive and optimistic and he was a great communicator. I think those things are something we all look for in a leader and a manager.

Braun stopped short of ever mentioning Macha by name, but the former manager’s people skills were repeatedly brought up as a reason for his firing. Macha later explained that Braun, Prince Fielder, and other key players didn’t reciprocate his communication attempts, saying about Braun: “I talked a lot to Ryan almost every day, but he does his own thing. He’s going to do what he wants to do.”