Brewers pick up Roenicke’s contract, keep manager for another season

PHOENIX - Even after the Milwaukee Brewers opted to keep him around after an epic collapse last year, manager Ron Roenicke wasn’t entirely sure about his future.
“Yeah, of course I was wondering,” Roenicke said. “It’s part of the job. Fair or unfair, it is part of the job.”
He can rest easy now after the team exercised the 2016 option on Roenicke’s contract late Thursday.
“We had a discussion back in the fall,” general manager Doug Melvin said. “We talked about it further and Mark and I visited on it and felt it was the right thing to do. He has had success here.”
Since Roenicke took the job before the 2011 season, his teams are 335-317 (.517). Milwaukee won the National League Central and advanced to the NLCS his first year at the helm but struggled the next two seasons, finishing 83-79 in 2012 and 74-88 in 2013.
The Brewers rebounded last season and led the NL Central before an abysmal September left them on the outside looking in for the playoffs after finishing with an 82-80 record.
Principal owner Mark Attanasio and Melvin spent more than two weeks before announcing that the 58-year-old Roenicke, whose option for 2015 was picked up in March 2014, would be brought back.
Still, Roenicke faced the prospect of going into the season with the appearance of being a lame-duck manager.
“It’s not comfortable,” Roenicke said. “Especially when I concentrate so much on what I do with my job, and I don’t want to have to answer questions about the personal side of it. So this is really good for me.”