Brewers' Lucroy says club denied him long-term extension in January

Jonathan Lucroy wanted to be a Milwaukee Brewer for life, but team management had other ideas.

The 2014 All-Star says he proposed the idea of a long-term contract extension with the club last winter, but it fell on deaf ears.

"It was a proposal that would have kept me here for the rest of my career, most likely," Lucroy told MLB.com's Adam McCalvy. "We gave it to them in early January, and we got to spring training, they informed us they weren't interested in doing anything at this point in time.

"I guess I was 50/50 on whether or not they were going to try to work with us on it. Without getting into the specific numbers and length, I don't think they were very comfortable with those parts of it."

The catcher is set to make $3 million this year, and won't become a free agent until 2017 at the earliest. Milwaukee has a $5.25-million team option for the 2017 campaign, which could delay Lucroy from hitting the open market for another year.

The 29-year-old is widely regarded as one of the best at his position, but is in the midst of a down season after being slowed by a toe injury in April. Lucroy's .243/.308/.337 slash line through 52 games fails in comparison to his .301/.373/.465 outburst the previous year.