In Doug We Trust. But should we?

[Pedro]

After reading through numerous threads the past week, I've come to rethink my "In Doug (Melvin, that is) We Trust" mantra. Should we? Has he received more credit than he deserves based on results and the current roster?

 

Nothing fancy here, I just broke the team down into acquisition groups:

 

Draft - I give credit here to Jack Z (whom Melvin did not hire) and his staff

Ben Sheets (actually before Jack Z), Manny Parra, Yovanni Gallardo, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, JJ Hardy, Bill Hall, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, Tony Gwynn Jr

 

Free Agents

Eric Gagne, David Riske, Jeff Suppan, Derrick Turnbow, Mike Rivera, Craig Counsell, Joe Dillon, Mike Cameron, Gabe Kapler

 

Via Trade

Dave Bush and Gabe Gross (Overbay), Seth McClung (Grant Balfour), Guillermo Mota (Johnny Estrada), Brian Shouse (Enrique Cruz), Salomon Torres (2 minor leaguers), Carlos Villanueva (Wayne Franklin)

 

There is also the matter of Melvin hiring and keeping Ned Yost.

 

The core of the team is obviously the draft choices, which I am (perhaps unfairly) not giving Melvin much credit for.

 

Of the free agent signings, the biggies are Suppan, Gagne and Cameron. The Suppan signing doesn't get too much love here based on the dollars and length. Gagne and Cameron are to be determined, but overall the one-year commitments don't seem too terrible. Riske seems to be a nice signing, but again, he's yet to play for us. Turnbow is the "nugget" who has fallen on more difficult times. And I don't think there was a whole lot of great things to say about the Counsell deal.

 

The best trade at this point is Villanueva for Franklin, so credit to Melvin there. Shouse has turned out well. Bush/Gross (and ZachJack) doesn't seem to be the haul most expected for Overbay, but such is life. Torress could turn out well or just become another "Meh" transaction.

 

There were other trades along the way that - although no players are on the current roster -- have resulted in the Brewers having plenty of early draft picks in 2008.

 

But, based on the current roster, do you think Melvin has held up his end in putting together a winning team? Or should he have done more/better? What is the overall role of the GM and where should we give credit.

 

I'm still a Melvin fan, but....we'll, I'll admit I'm starting to have second thoughts. I'll have to give it some more thought and would like to hear other opinions and comments.

 

(sorry for this poorly written post, but I'm also watching the Wisconsin/Davison game)

[lcbj68c]

Maybe a little nugget also has to be that he hasn't seemingly made too many mistakes either. Another GM may have traded away some of that talent that Jack Z drafted to make a run a little sooner than 2008. While something else may have been done in Free agency, it takes the willingness of the free agent to come as well. If you look at the trades, the Overbay situation was a money dump at the time, but in terms of talent we were obviously hosed for two years now that Overbay is deminishing. The other trades were mostly scrapheap for scrapheap. The Ned Yost backing is where the pendulum hinges, of yet, I'm not yet ready to decide.

[Gopher74]

You simply can't give ALL of the credit to Jack Z and none of it to Melvin. Melvin has always had a large hand in building the farm system in Milwaukee just as he did in Texas when they developed one of the top systems.

 

To just say that every player we've developed should be almost held against Melvin...I don't agree with that at all.

[logan82]

I think the feeling over the last year has shifted from trusting in Doug and thinking he has done a great job building our team to more of a feeling that at least he hasn't screwed up the team by trading a lot of young talent. Taking a step back and really evaluating the situation you can't help but notice that most of our current players and major contributers have been draft picks. He doesn't have a lot of money to play with so expecting him to actually do much would be unreasonable. Bottom line to me is that he hasn't signed anybody to a potentially franchise crippling contract so should be able to keep winning year after year.

[endaround]

If it wasn't for the Overbay trade, the Brewers likely wouldn't have gotten Koskie which more than made up for it

[Pedro]

You simply can't give ALL of the credit to Jack Z and none of it to Melvin. Melvin has always had a large hand in building the farm system in Milwaukee just as he did in Texas when they developed one of the top systems.

 

To just say that every player we've developed should be almost held against Melvin...I don't agree with that at all.

 

You're right, and I didn't mean to make it an all or nothing scenario in terms of the drafting (to be honest, I don't know enough about the structure, procedure and internal relationships to have a real idea of who should get credit -- obviously it's never just one person). I simply meant to group the players and look at in general terms. If anything, I was probably trying to isolate the trades and free agent moves.

[Gopher74]

If you look at the trades, the Overbay situation was a money dump at the time, but in terms of talent we were obviously hosed for two years now that Overbay is deminishing.

I don't understand what you're saying here. Overbay made 446,000 in his last year in Milwaukee and 1.3 million last year, so I don't think the move had anything whatsoever do to with money, rather we wanted to open up a spot for Prince.

 

I'd also argue that we definitely did not get "hosed" in talent. Overbay is a very average offensive 1st basemen, and defense isn't a very big factor there. But it's how you word it that has me alittle confused. "in terms of talent, we were obviously hosed for two years now that Overbay is diminishing"? I don't understand what you mean by that. Overbay was awful last year, but he had one poor year in an injury plagued season, so I don't think that he's diminishing. I think he had a single bad year. But it almost sounds like you're saying "based on Overbay's two years out of Milwaukee, he outproduced what we got in return for him", something I'd strenuously argue. Maybe though I'm not reading this correctly.

 

[Gopher74]

You're right, and I didn't mean to make it an all or nothing scenario in terms of the drafting (to be honest, I don't know enough about the structure, procedure and internal relationships to have a real idea of who should get credit -- obviously it's never just one person). I simply meant to group the players and look at in general terms. If anything, I was probably trying to isolate the trades and free agent moves.

Well then I don't think a reasonable argument could be made that the draft isn't the biggest factor in our success, or impending success. I think without the trades and FA signings, we're still likely a very solid team, but in any case of a small market team that succeeds, those avenues have to supplement the talent more than produce the base of it if they hope to remain successful for years to come, and I don't think that's any different here.

 

[Pedro]

Gopher, how do you feel Melvin has done in supplementing the draft talent?

[Gopher74]

Gopher, how do you feel Melvin has done in supplementing the draft talent?

I think he's done a fine job. Nothing extraordinary, but I think he's done a decent job with it.

 

Suppan, Villanueva, Gross, Bush, Turnbow, Gange....he's brought in guys who won't be our core guys in most cases, but will be vital to winning.

 

It's really a very difficult question to answer because as I said, seldom does a small market team have a lot of core pieces brought in from outside unless they get lucky in a trade like the Indians did with the Colon deal, or the Twins did with the Liriano deal. Our closest one was the Villanueva deal, or the Sexon deal,but even that was only marginal talent.

 

[hauser42]

This team is mostly going to be built by draft picks for years to come, this what happens with teams not in the large markets.

 

Melvin and Jack Z do the draft together. Now that the team is contending people are starting to nit pick. What has Doug done wrong since he was here. He has allowed the great young talent grow at its pace and put a fine team together by filling in pieces.

 

Overbay?? We got more than enough for him. 2 years ago it was a steal of a trade becaue some here felt Zack Jack was going to be a starter sooner than later and hold down a spot for years to come. Doug got some arms to help out on all levels of the team.

[brewjihad]

I think Doug is a fine general manager, but it's fair to point out that he has gotten pretty much dominated in his last two trades.

 

Davis, Eveland, Krynzel for--> Estrada, Vargas, Acquino (Mota)

 

Inman, Thatcher, Garrison ---> Linebrink

 

The only way I would ever consider getting rid of Melvin is if Jack Z were to get the job.

[bork]

If you break down the drafts, it's actually:

 

2 Bando (Hall, Sheets) - People forget that Hall has been in the organization longer than Sheets.

4 Taylor/Jack Z (Hart, Hardy, Parra, Fielder)

4 Melvin/Jack Z (Weeks, Gwynn, Gallardo, Braun)

 

So Melvin inherited a quarter of the roster.

[lcbj68c]

I don't understand what you're saying here. Overbay made 446,000 in his last year in Milwaukee and 1.3 million last year, so I don't think the move had anything whatsoever do to with money, rather we wanted to open up a spot for Prince.

 

Yes, that was the reason. I'll note that Prince was obviously cheaper than the 2.6 Lyle was scheduled to make in 2006. We were already spending way more money than we were used to and Prince for Lyle saved 2.3 million. But I retract my statement. I was wrong.

 

I don't understand what you mean by that. Overbay was awful last year, but he had one poor year in an injury plagued season, so I don't think that he's diminishing. I think he had a single bad year.

 

Injury plagued maybe, but he still had over 400 atbats and produced .240/.315/.391 over not exactly a small sample size. You could argue that the injuries had lasting effects even while playing and I couldn't argue against you. I can only see what's produced on paper as I dont follow Toronto baseball.

 

But it almost sounds like you're saying "based on Overbay's two years out of Milwaukee, he outproduced what we got in return for him", something I'd strenuously argue. Maybe though I'm not reading this correctly.

 

No, not in terms of producing, just in terms of talent alone, I'm saying the first two years, Toronto won the deal in terms of what the pure talent was able to produce, make sense? I think in terms of producing, it may be near a push. We got a #4 pitcher in Bush who took the ball over 30 times a year and got 24 wins out of it. Gabe Gross on the other hand hasn't averaged even 200 AB's a year to really determine what he can do. Not that he ever projected as a top 3 outfielder for any team in the majors anyhow.

 

[Ennder]

Melvin also picked up Pods didn't he, then traded him for Lee which to me is the best deal he has made overall? Then traded Lee for Cordero and got a year of him before he went FA and gave us draft picks?

 

I also disagree that we lost the Doug Davis trade, Davis and Vargas are the same guy but Vargas had more plausible upside. Vargas just happened to get hurt and Davis had a lucky ERA. Eveland hasn't done anything to suggest he is a big loss and Krynzel is useless.

 

We 'lost' the linebrink deal but only because we failed to make the playoffs. If we had taken the division by 1 game then we win that trade. It is a tough position to be in.

 

I'm not a fan of the Suppan signing and I'm dubious about Kendall. Melvin is far from perfect but then again you can't always get the guys you want and sometimes plan B and plan C require a good bit of risk.

[Gopher74]

Yes, that was the reason. I'll note that Prince was obviously cheaper than the 2.6 Lyle was scheduled to make in 2006. We were already spending way more money than we were used to and Prince for Lyle saved 2.3 million. But I retract my statement. I was wrong.

 

I see what you're saying, and I believe that Overbay did make over 2 million that following season(not sure why he only made 1.3 last year, but that is what Baseballreference.com has), but I don't believe that had nearly as much to do with it as just allowing Prince a full-time spot. By the way, anyone else remember the debates over whether we should trade Prince and keep Overbay? I'm certainly glad that we ended up the way we are.

 

Injury plagued maybe, but he still had over 400 atbats and produced .240/.315/.391 over not exactly a small sample size.

No, but I don't believe that you can take one season at age 30 and say that he's diminishing because of it. I think there were extenuating circumstances behind it. I think that this year will be very telling with Overbay in terms of what type of career he's going to have.

 

No, not in terms of producing, just in terms of talent alone, I'm saying the first two years, Toronto won the deal in terms of what the pure talent was able to produce, make sense?

 

Frankly, not really. You're saying not in terms of producing, just in terms of what that talent was able to produce. I think I'd also throw in the caveat that we pretty much had to trade Overbay despite the talk from Melvin about keeping both players, because we had Prince waiting. If you're forced to trade a guy, for instance like we did with Lee, your return isn't going to be as great, so then it's a matter of what type of return did the manager get as opposed to what was expected. I think Melvin did alright in that trade.

 

[TheBrewer]

If you really want to be picky, Melvin is only the final person who has the say (and some could argue the bigger things he goes to Mark A. for such as Soup and I'm sure Gagne, but it's Dougs expertise on his advice to Mark A. ).. but continuing with my thought, if you want to be picky, Melvin is only the person who stamps the Approvals on things or Denied. Sure he goes to the Minor League Ballparks, watches the minors clubs, has expertise but he has a bunch of advisors and scouts who give their reccomendation to Doug, and then Doug makes the final call on things. For instance with Scotty Po, Doug may have liked him from when he saw him in Texas, but at the same time he probably said Mr. Scout go see how Scotty Po is doing, is he healthy? etc? The scout makes his reccomendation and then Doug listens, and usually based on what the scout says, Doug will say yes or no. With the June Drafts all the scouts reccomend what to do, who to pick etc, but its Doug says yes or no to it, and ultimately has the final say.

[Boy Jeenius]

Great job by Melvin - no question. Currently we have a stable, consistant, big picture direction for the entire franchise. Keeping prospects at their proper levels not rushing them and ruining them. A minor league system that still looks like it's still fairly deep, with 5 or 6 top picks coming in '08. The major league team ready to go for the grapes.

Sure we can 20/20 hindsight individual moves, but the other teams are trying too. Many, if not most of the other teams have far more resources available to them than the Brewers.

 

Looking at the forest or the trees? I don't think we should we go back to sucking.

 

The suggestion that Jack Z should be a GM was answered this year. Several new GM's hired in MLB this year. No one thought to even give the guy a phone call, much less an interview.

[Gopher74]

The suggestion that Jack Z should be a GM was answered this year. Several new GM's hired in MLB this year. No one thought to even give the guy a phone call, much less an interview.

I don't know why you think that. He got a couple interviews I believe with the Pirates and many thought he would get that job. Simply because teams are too stupid to hire Jack Z doesn't mean that he's not a great exec. There's a reason h won Executive of the Year for Baseball America.

 

You can't diminish what he's done. Really, they've worked great together, and push comes to shove, I'd take Jack Z over Melvin because I believe that he's better at scouting, but I think both are great, and love the current set up the most.

 

[twobrewers]

Doug Melvin is General Manager.

He has many people reporting to him in regards to how the organization is run. While admittedly, he has final say in almost everything - his duties aren't comparable to fantasy baseball. It isn't simply drafting players and making trades.

He is building an entire team, not just baseball players. He has to manage his employees. He has to manage the farm systems. He has to juggle contracts. He has to plan for the draft. He has to plan for free agency. He has to work with in a budget to make the Brewers competitive every year. He has to time player development to ensure a constant flow through the system. (Melvin also made Milwaukee a desirable place for Free Agents as evident by Cameron, Gagne and Schilling's interest)

(Don't forget the amazing success the Brewers have had with Draft & Follow Candidates. While picking the players might be a credit to Jack Z. Using the system is a credit to Melvin.)

Some personnel moves work out. Some personnel moves don't. (For those upset about Yost, I think Melvin has developed a consistency with the Brewers that was sorely lacking. While you may or may not like Yost as a coach, I think having that consistency with young players certainly has some benefits.) But the bottom line...I think the Brewers are being run very well. And that goes beyond just selecting the right players.

[logan82]

twobrewers wrote:

(Don't forget the amazing success the Brewers have had with Draft & Follow Candidates. While picking the players might be a credit to Jack Z. Using the system is a credit to Melvin.)

I think what Pedro and most others ar trying to say is that Melvin inherited the best players we have. He can certainly be given some credit for some of our success, but the best players were aquired before he was on board.

[TooLiveBrew]

While that's true, I think you can also argue that, under Melvin, the minor-league depth has been sound (pardon the pun), and we're poised to absolutely restock the farm. Once the June '08 draft goes down, I think we'll have a much greater appreciation for DM the GM. He's set up arguably his best weapon with an abundance of party-time on draft day. Think Zduriencik isn't excited? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[PeaveyFury]

He can certainly be given some credit for some of our success, but the best players were aquired before he was on board.

 

Ryan Braun was acquired on his watch, and he's probably the 2nd or 3rd best player on the team.

[Gopher74]

But the bottom line...I think the Brewers are being run very well. And that goes beyond just selecting the right players.

For a very long time I never thought I'd see something to this effect...and agree with it.

 

Whoever you want to give the credit to, it's an absolutely beautiful thing that we're discussing who gets the credit for the Brewers success.

 

[Gopher74]

While that's true, I think you can also argue that, under Melvin, the minor-league depth has been sound (pardon the pun), and we're poised to absolutely restock the farm. Once the June '08 draft goes down, I think we'll have a much greater appreciation for DM the GM. He's set up arguably his best weapon with an abundance of party-time on draft day. Think Zduriencik isn't excited? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

You can pretty clearly feel the excitement when he speaks, and it even comes through in print, such as with that article that was posted about Jack Z scouting out in Cali.

 

I feel that the expectations for the draft are almost like the expectations for Braun this year. Both have done such a fantastic job, you expect maybe unrealistic things out of them. I'm looking to add 5 or 6 top 25 prospects with Jack Z's abundance of early pickshttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif(I'll let him miss on 1 or 2).

I think Melvin is setting Jack Z up for hopefully that same type of situation with Gange's contract, and possibly Sheets. We could find ourselves again having 6 picks in the top 70-75 of the draft next year as well. I just hope if that's the case(which would be a little disappointing because it'd mean Sheets walked) that we still have Zduriencik in charge.