Attanasio pleased with Crew’s progress in ’16

MILWAUKEE — A year and a day after he introduced David Stearns as baseball’s youngest general manager, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio praised the work of Stearns and manager Craig Counsell in 2016, saying he believes the franchise is already on the way back up.

The Brewers were 68-84 as Attanasio held his annual year-end meeting with reporters Thursday afternoon, matching their win total from the year before with 10 games remaining.

“We don’t have a schedule for what we’re trying to do in terms of getting back to the playoffs, but we had more positive performances from younger players this year than I was expecting,” Attanasio said. “I would say that gives David a high grade right there.

“I really try hard not to put a timetable on [returning to contention]. We saw it with the last team. We took a big step forward in 2005 and took a step back in 2006 and we took a step forward in 2007 and a big step in ’08. I don’t want to pinpoint a year, but I would say that we are just further along the continuum than we would have thought at this point. There are more guys on the field right now and on this roster now that can be part of that winning effort.”

One of those guys was Ryan Braun, who returned from a two-day paternity leave to start the series finale against Pittsburgh. Thursday …

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