In Doug We Trust. But should we?

[uwisfan]

1. I fault him for not firing Yost yet. What is he waiting for.

 

2. I went thinking top 3 GMs in baseball before last year to probably top 10, due to the most recent trades he's made last year.

 

3. Someone mentioned he got fleeced in getting Linebrink for those 3 pictchers. While the deal looks poor right now, you neglected to mention that the Crew gets high draft picks also.

[MessiahRp]

My opinion of Doug is he's a solid "B" GM. Yes he inherited a lot of the talent that are on the big club now but he seems to have handled them well and not panicked when he could have moved any one of these guys for veterans to make us more competitive sooner. By not doing so we're set up with an affordable, competitive young team for the next few years and are not saddled with a ton of high salaried veterans who might not be living up to their contracts right now.

 

As far as Free Agency goes I think we're limited just because of our market status but I think Doug's been a little hit and miss here. The Gagne deal, while only for one year, could backfire quickly if he plays like he did the second half of last year in Boston. The Suppan deal was horrible. I had made the case when it was between us and Pittsburgh that if we couldn't outbid Pittsburgh for his services that it said something about how much money we would spend and how much Milwaukee's prestige as a place free agents want to come to has not increased. However I can't recall a single person, myself included, that thought he was worth $42 million. Especially since most of us were of the assessment that Suppan = Doug Davis basically. I also think Craig Counsell is a close second in terms of worst free agent signings by Melvin. On the flip side personally I think the David Riske signing will be the best signing of the offseason as I am of the opinion that of everyone in the pen he will end up being the most reliable guy we have.

 

The Villanueva trade was a gem and personally I think he's the most underrated pitcher on the team. IMO, the guy would be a very solid #3 behind Sheets (when healthy) and Gallardo. Overbay was a good guy and a solid producer but he didn't have a place to play here and so we took Koskie (a salary dump), Bush (a guy with high upside) and Jackson (a prospect with some upside). Bush has been a good enough backend starter (I would probably make him the #5 on this team) and Jackson could pan out, even if the likelihood of such seems more difficult to ascertain as each year goes by. Koskie didn't pan out but he didn't cost us much either. Considering that we had to move Overbay, the haul wasn't bad. Usually you get less when your hand is so obviously forced as ours was.

 

You could make a strong case that the Davis for Vargas/Estrada trade flopped bad and unless Cappy comes back strong it will look like in the long run all we got for Richie Sexson was whatever Bush makes of himself (since we peddled Overbay who we got in the deal to Toronto) and one and a half good years from Cappy. Not to mention that we gave up Will Inman and Joe Thatcher for Linebrink who didn't pan out and we may well be kicking ourselves for giving up Thatcher even considering whatever pick we get out of Linebrink signing with the White Sox. Not quite sure why Melvin and the organization had such a low opinion of him. We traded him at a time when we had tried just about everyone imaginable to patch up a broken pen. How many innings did we give to Chris Spurling?

 

There are still some acquisitions to be determined in terms of value here. Mora will need to bounce back and have a good year, as will Cameron. Neither has been particularly valuable recently and both have had drug suspensions. The aforementioned Gagne had serious injury issues and doesn't seem to be the same guy who was the best closer in the game a few years back. Torres may not have a whole lot left. Kendall seemed pretty washed up when the A's gave him up for peanuts to the Cubs last year.

 

Melvin's succeeded at getting a good year out of a retread in Turnbow but he's self destructed since. Shouse seemed pretty much washed up before Melvin picked him up and now he's a pretty solid situational lefty. Graffy was good when he came over from KC and though he had struggled early in the season he was coming on before his injury ended his time here and considering how little we were getting out of De La Rosa it was a worthy acquistion. He gave up an overrated Scott Podsednik for a legitimate power hitter in Carlos Lee and then moved Lee for a solid year and a half of one of the game's best closers in Cordero. Cordero might not have stayed and Mench may have sucked but that's a pretty good turnaround for Scotty Podsednik.

 

The opinions a lot of people had on Melvin before last year may have changed because no longer do the Sexson (18 game winner Cappy), Davis (high era pitcher for solid hitting catcher) and Overbay deals (Koskie was seen as a solid hitting 3B and Bush a solid starter) look as pristine. Not to mention we have nothing to show for Carlos Lee now that Cordero has moved on.

 

I still rate him a B.

 

Theo Epstein may be the best GM in the game right now and he has made his fair share of mistakes (J.D. Drew/Julio Lugo). Nobody's perfect.

 

Rp

[Gopher74]

Great post, just a few points-

 

Overbay was a good guy and a solid producer but he didn't have a place to play here and so we took Koskie (a salary dump), Bush (a guy with high upside) and Jackson (a prospect with some upside).

 

Koskie came over from Toronto later on. Gross was the third player in that deal, though some have argued that without the first trade, the second wouldn't have taken place.

The Gagne deal, while only for one year, could backfire quickly if he plays like he did the second half of last year in Boston.

 

It could, but the risk is only a one year deal. It's absolutely about as risky as one year can be, but still, it's just one season. I think going into the season without a more established closer like many feared he was going to do would have been a worse idea.

The Suppan deal was horrible. I had made the case when it was between us and Pittsburgh that if we couldn't outbid Pittsburgh for his services that it said something about how much money we would spend and how much Milwaukee's prestige as a place free agents want to come to has not increased.

 

I agree that I don't like the deal, but there were a couple other teams in on Suppan. I know the Mets were very interested. As I said, I don't particularly like the 42 over 4, but it can only be a "bad" deal if you overpaid in the market, and when Lilly gets 40/4, Marquis 21/3 and Meche 5/55, it's hard to argue you overpaid for Suppan.

 

Not to mention that we gave up Will Inman and Joe Thatcher for Linebrink who didn't pan out and we may well be kicking ourselves for giving up Thatcher even considering whatever pick we get out of Linebrink signing with the White Sox.

 

I'm of the opinion, you can only regret giving up a situational lefty so much. Yea, right now it looks like we may have given up too much since the move didn't work out and he didn't stabilize the BP like we'd hoped, however you get 2 picks for Linebrink, a Supplemental 1st and then their second rounder with which you can likely grab two players superior to what you gave up, so in that regard, I can't really complain too much about it. Perhaps if we'd known how well Thatcher was going to perform down the stretch for the Padres, we'd have insisted that we throw someone else in, but maybe it was SD that was pushing hard for Thatcher? And based on Inman's AA numbers, I'm not real disappointed we gave him up. I think the one we may end up missing the most is Garrison.

Neither has been particularly valuable recently and both have had drug suspensions.

 

Cameron had a little bit of a down 06, but even then he still provided value, and was very solid in 06. I understand that the suspension is hanging over his head, but it appears to be for about as minor infraction as can get you suspended with the prevailing thought being it was a supplement. Mota on the other hand will be interesting. Everything sounds good from the spring, and he looked like he was pretty crisp. If he can come back and have a good year being the 5th guy out of that pen, he could really help this team out a ton.

Melvin's succeeded at getting a good year out of a retread in Turnbow but he's self destructed since.

This is the part that I have the strongest disagreement over. Turnbow's been a lightning rod for the criticism here, but he hasn't been nearly as bad as fans would like to portray him. Last year he led the league in scoreless innings, and forgive me as these aren't exact numbers, but his ERA in 70 of his starts was something like 1.55 while it was about 77.40 in his other 7. Yost was unable to identify when Turnbow was struggling and left him in the game too long. Certainly some fault has to be laid at T-Bow's feet, however it's a managers job to be able to know your players, and he clearly did not last year. I think where Mota, Riske and especially Torres come in, is giving Yost a few more options to go to when Turnbow starts losing it a little bit this year. He can hopefully have a quicker hook and preserve his psyche as well as the lead. Also, this is a little picky, but Turnbow's been in two organizations, so I don't think the term "retread" is necessarily appropriate for him.

Not to mention we have nothing to show for Carlos Lee now that Cordero has moved on.

We'll, we've got two drafts picks, a 1st and a 2nd that could very well turn into two key players of the future.

Torres may not have a whole lot left. Kendall seemed pretty washed up when the A's gave him up for peanuts to the Cubs last year.

 

Yea, that's a concern as both are in their 30's, Kendall I believe is 33 and Torres 36, but both had very good seasons up until last year where Torres had a little nagging elbow injury and Kendall put up atrocious first half numbers before bouncing back with the Cubs a little bit.

 

Theo Epstein may be the best GM in the game right now and he has made his fair share of mistakes (J.D. Drew/Julio Lugo). Nobody's perfect.

 

I agree. I love what he's done in Boston. He talked about a 100 million dollar player development empire a few years back when Boston and New York were just buying any and everybody they wanted, and he's since developed several key pieces to what is IMO the best team in the league right now, and the defending World Series Champs. I don't know that he's a "better" GM than Melvin per say, but he's got more resources. Melvin's got almost no room for error when he makes a big move whereas Epstein has plenty with his insane moments when he gives Julio Lugo 9 million dollars a year for 4 years, or JD Drew about 14 a year. But when you have Ellsbury, Pedroria, and Lowrie, you can rebound from that awfully quickly.

[MessiahRp]

Great post, just a few points-

 

Overbay was a good guy and a solid producer but he didn't have a place to play here and so we took Koskie (a salary dump), Bush (a guy with high upside) and Jackson (a prospect with some upside).

 

Koskie came over from Toronto later on. Gross was the third player in that deal, though some have argued that without the first trade, the second wouldn't have taken place.

You're right. For some reason I tend to lump those two trades in together. Although I think the assessment that Gross isn't going to pan out is still early and speculative, his time in Milwaukee hasn't quite been spectacular even if it has been limited.

 

With the Cordero/Lee point I meant in terms of what fans see currently. My overall point was that there's a lot less luster on the deals people used to frame Melvin as a genius as there was before the beginning of last season due to some poor performances by the players we received and also by the departures of a lot of the key figures to those deals. So that may be some of the reason people are judging him a bit more critically this year.

 

Keeping Yost on might be his call as well, if so I would be in the camp that it was a bad move but I'm not entirely sure that doesn't go all the way up to Attanasio either so I'll withhold judgment on that.

 

Rp

[Tbadder]

I think Doug at this point should always get the benefit of the doubt. Promoting Jack Z. was brilliant (I bet he had a huge hand in that move). The Crew need to keep other teams away from him. But I do get this sneaking suspicion that the Brewers are turning into Texas Rangers North--all mashers, few pitchers or well-rounded players. That bothers me some. But still, he's got a lot of restraints other teams don't have, even though this has gotten considerably better under Mark A. I agree with many that not moving Yost on his way has been his biggest mistake so far.

[silversurferr]

Melvin is easily one of the top 10 GM's in the game. Possibly top five.

[twobrewers]

Koskie didn't pan out but he didn't cost us much either.

Koskie was very good. His injury was a freak accident. We traded nothing for him, AND Toronto paid most of his salary. That might have been Doug's best move.

 

Here is my question for everyone... when you break down all of his moves one by one, you can certainly argue that he has lost/missed on some. But isn't the end result all that really matters? Who would you still have on our team that isn't now? (Other than possibly Cordero - and frankly Gagne for 1 year instead of Cordero for 4 years is a push to me)

 

Did we lose the Linebrink trade? Maybe, but Inman looks like he might never be a ML pitcher. Thatcher has been very solid for San Diego, but he probably wouldn't be in our bullpen this year. ( I think Stetter is pretty similar)

 

Did we lose the Davis trade? Maybe, but did we really want to give Doug Davis a long term contract? Eveland has yet to prove his is ML pitcher and I believe Krynzel is out of baseball. Davis was only under contract for one more year. So we traded one year of Davis for a year of Vargas and Estrada.

 

Did we lose the Suppan signing? Maybe, but he definately has value to our ball club. He takes the ball every five days and eats innings to help save our bullpen. He is probably overpaid - but that signing likely played some role in making Milwaukee a legitimate MLB team.

 

Did you really want to overpay to keep Carlos Lee for 30 years at $60 million a year?

Bottom line...Given our budget, I can't imagine putting a better team on the field that we will in 2008.

[DrWood]

I don't get how anyone can say the sexson or overbay trades were anything but a success. the davis trade will only turn against us if Eveland turns out to be a solid ML player. The linebrink trade wasn't a failure; the picks should net better players than inman and garrison, and regarding thatcher, exactly how many sidewinding lefties does the organization need? Shouse and Stetter should be enough. trading posednik for a couple years of lee, a couple years of cordero, and a couple of high draft picks seems an overwhelming success. Signing Kendall was probably the best available option.

[rousieboy]

Why aren't more people talking up the sweet Sexson trade...anyone remember his short term stats in AZ or the fact that HE WAS LEAVING ANYWAY? Just as he left AZ?!

[TooLiveBrew]

Mora will need to bounce back and have a good year, as will Cameron. Neither has been particularly valuable recently and both have had drug suspensions.

 

This misconception of Cameron needs to stop. The only reason people don't understand what a fine player he is is due to basically his entire career being played in pitchers' parks. Go check his home/road splits, especially while he played in PetCo.

Mike Cameron is a very good all-around player, and a fine offensive player.

[snyttri]

I think of the Overbay trade as a failure because, if I was reading the rumors correctly, Melvin chose the Toronto package over Bronson Arroyo of the Red Sox, who ended up settling for Willy Mo Pena when they couldn't get Overbay.

 

Still, Melvin is a very good GM and it would be devastating to lose him.

[logan82]

twobrewers wrote:

Did we lose the Davis trade? Maybe, but did we really want to give Doug Davis a long term contract?

We didn't have to give Davis a long term contract, but he threatened to go to arbitration if he didn't get a 3 year contract. At that point he pretty much sealed his fate with the Brewers.

 

We still don't know what we got for the Overbay deal as Gross hasn't gotten a chance to really show what he can do yet, and I doubt he ever will with the Brewers, barring injury.

[endaround]

Some people believe that a 4.50 ERA pitcher is worth $11 million a year, so Bush alone is huge win for Obveraby.

 

If Davis was on the Brewers last year, the Brewers would have been better and they would have had 2 draft picks after he left. Instead the Brewers were worse and really have only Mota to show for it which was really a salary dump. That doesn't even consider Eveland.

[logan82]

Yeah I didn't want to even touch the Dave Bush part of the trade since there seems to be a large contingent of "Bush can only go 5 innings" people, or maybe just very vocal contingent.

[don1481]

there seems to be a large contingent of "Bush can only go 5 innings" people, or maybe just very vocal contingent.

 

Compared to the "Vargas can only go 5 innings and is killing our bullpen" committee - of which I was a proud member - Bush's ability to pitch deep(er) into games is not a huge concern. Even last year he still averaged about 6 IP/start. I'll take that over Claudio's "I can use 90+ pitches (and 5 hours) to labor through 5 innings." DM did the right thing by keeping Bush and jettisoning Vargas.

 

I am not convinced of DM's greatness; he's shown himself to be quite fallible during his last couple of major trades, as discussed earlier in this thread. He's good, yes, but I guess the signings of Cameron and Gagne will go a long ways towards defining what his legacy as GM will be.

[gregmag]

As somebody noted, Sexson and Lee were short-term rentals for the teams that got them. You can't compare the player we gave up, with no time factor, to the time-limited performances of the players we got. Even if you write off Sexson's injury the year after we lost him to bad luck, Arizona got a year of Sexson, and we got two good years of Capuano and two good years of Overbay, whose unexciting future we then flipped for Bush and Gross. That's a nice return, and Tomo Ohka (picked up for Spivey, who also came over for Sexson) helped for a bit too. For two months of Carlos Lee (himself a brilliant return on the rotting corpse of Podsednik plus a decent reliever in Vizcaino) we got a year and change of championship-caliber closing plus two high draft picks. That's an insanely great return.

 

The Davis deal looks more and more like not much for not much (unless, as someone pointed out, Eveland puts it all together); a loss, but not a huge loss, since Davis was about to get expensive. I think the full extent of Estrada's suckitude legitimately surprised most of us. I've prattled on before about how much I hate the Linebrink deal, but if the Inman naysayers are right, then it may not look like a disaster in retrospect. Wayne Franklin for Villanueva was, of course, genius.

 

Overall, I think Melvin has done an excellent job of deciding whom to trade and when, and getting back parts we could use.

 

Greg.

[snyttri]

Some people believe that a 4.50 ERA pitcher is worth $11 million a year, so Bush alone is huge win for Obveraby.

Didn't Arroyo get that huge contract based primarily on a season as one of the league's best pitchers he could have had for the Brewers with a low salary? Who knows whether the Brewers would have signed him to a big contract or not?

 

EDIT: Arroyo had just signed a contract for 3 years for a total of 11.2M when the Brewers might have gotten him for his All-Star year. He is a 4.23 ERA innings eater last year and for his career.

[brains and braun]

Great post Greg. I felt like the time we got from many of the players who are no longer with the club was being ignored as well. To zero in on the Sexson deal, I thought it was important to add average or better players to a team that often had scrubs playing big innings. While I don't like every move either, I think Melvin has been above average. I also agree that avoiding a crippling long term albatross like Hammonds' contract has been crucial. For this reason, I can't see how anyone would have a beef with the Cameron or Gagne deals. Even if they are colossal busts, what do we really have to lose? I am extremely pleased that both players could be had for one-year deals.

[don1481]

For this reason, I can't see how anyone would have a beef with the Cameron or Gagne deals. Even if they are colossal busts, what do we really have to lose? I am extremely pleased that both players could be had for one-year deals.

What do we have to lose? If they're colossal busts, DM has invested quite a bit of money into a CF and a closer that didn't get the job done. And knowing Ned's inability to bench someone who's a "starter" in spite of a long slump, Cameron being a bust in CF could have a significant impact on the offense. Likewise - how long would Ned stick with an ineffective Gagne? Those are questions which I hope we will not have to face this year, but they are legitimate risks.

That's the risk that small market teams have to take, though, I guess.

[clancyphile]

In terms of Jack Z - Doug Melvin deserves credit for sticking with them even though they were from a previous regime.

 

The selection of Ned Yost as manager also has been a good one overall. This year will truly determine if it works out, but Yost turned the team;s attitude from 2002 around. Yost seems to get all the blame and none of the credit.

 

Perhaps the only deal that went "bad" was the Davis trade... had Sharpie been a Brewer, we're in the playoffs. Still, the Linebrink and Cordero trades were washes at worst - and getting the draft picks will ensure an influx of new talent.

 

The Gagne deal, believe it or not, gives me some hope - Gagne, IIRC, is repped by Boras. If a Boras-repped free agent is coming TO Milwaukee, then perhaps we can get Fielder to stay after all.

[tigerbrew]

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?

I still have faith in DM, but his seemingly huge confidence in Yost is rather unsettling. Failure to make postseason this year would be disastrous and in turn keeping Yost might be a mistake.

 

To me the best trade by DM is the CV trade, a stroke of genius. Followed with the Sexson trade and the CoCo trade. The Linebrink trade is his worst trade, it reeks of desperation. As if Thatcher and Inman for Linebrink was not bad enough, DM caved in to Kevin Towers and added Garrison to the deal making it a terrible trade for the Brewers. At that time I wondered why DM made this awful trade instead of calling Thatcher up to the bullpen?

[Invader3K]

I thought the Linebrink trade was a good move at the time, but it clearly didn't really work out well. I guess we got a draft pick or something for him leaving, but that's not a lot of consolation, since he wasn't really stellar with the Brewers, which was kind of the point.

[Ennder]

Perhaps the only deal that went "bad" was the Davis trade... had Sharpie been a Brewer, we're in the playoffs

 

If Davis had been a Brewer his ERA would have been over 5, really doubt it would have made a difference other than maybe us having a better C for last year.

[DrWood]

thatcher is another sidearming lefties. It might make some sense to have two on the roster during september, or if shouse had been grossly overused, but he didn't really have a place while shouse is on the roster. Same with Stetter. He'll only make the roster if shouse is injured, overworked, or for a cup of coffee in September.