Time to start looking at Melvin?

[homer]

Yes, but plenty of guys raked in AA & it was a good indicator of talent & future success. I just don't like the way minor-league numbers tend to get viewed as meaningless or 'made up'. Plenty of ballplayers tore up MLB only to flame out, so it's not like there's no precedent there either.

Minor league numbers aren't meaningless but I don't think they should be used to show whether a trade was good or bad for the teams involved.

Exactly. You need to wait and see how a guy pans out before judging the trade one way or the other. Linebrink trade can only be judged once all parties involved get a few seasons under their belt in the bigs.

[logan82]

TheCrew07 wrote:

Well by that logic then Escobar and Brantley don't have a future either, since each is also repeating AA... Struggling in your first go round at AA as a very young player for the league doesn't mean much about their ability level. I'm still not sold on Escobar's bat, but he's having a tremendous season thus far.

 

I thought Inman was dominant in AA last year.

[sveumrules]

TheCrew07 wrote:

Well by that logic then Escobar and Brantley don't have a future either, since each is also repeating AA... Struggling in your first go round at AA as a very young player for the league doesn't mean much about their ability level. I'm still not sold on Escobar's bat, but he's having a tremendous season thus far.

I thought Inman was dominant in AA last year.

 

he was pretty dominant in a+, but had a 4.80 era between the brewers and padres aa teams. i seem to recall from the game logs that he had a rough start in huntsville and then put together a string of encouraging starts right before the trade. it seems the two transactions that are most often held to melvin's detriment are the linebrink trade and the gagne signing. in both cases he rolled the dice, and in both cases with good reason. i'm still not convinced anyone we gave up in the linebrink deal will ever be more than a back of the rotation starter in the bigs and if that does come to fruition i have a feeling petco could be a big reason why. as for gagne, it hasn't worked out the best obviously, but i'll take him for one year (plus odorizzi and lintz if i'm figuring right) instead of coco for four.

[TooLiveBrew]

Inman started off '08 by pwning Double-A, but has since cooled off. I know the Padres brass felt that one reason he struggled in '07 at Double-A (as in, after they'd traded for him) was that they felt he'd been overworked by the Brewers org. I'd bet Inman is in Portland (Triple-A) before the season is over.

 

 

Minor league numbers aren't meaningless but I don't think they should be used to show whether a trade was good or bad for the teams involved.

 

Agreed - absolutely.

[Postseason2006]

 

Inman hasn't even sniffed the majors yet. There are plenty of "can't miss" prospect that did in fact miss. Inman is not a "can't miss." Ben Hendrickson dominated the minors and couldn't get a guy out in the majors. Linebrink is having a great year, 1.45 ERA. Making judgements on a player for one game is just silly.

 

Neither has Gamel nor LaPorta so what's your point?

 

And since you brought that up, wouldn't it have been wiser to have resigned Linebrink than have the crap he has in the bullpen at 16million bucks in RH wash ups such as Turnblow, Gags, and Einie Minnie Mota?

[zzzmanwitz]

If i would have known that Linebrink was going to put up a 1.45 ERA, then yes. But neither DM nor myself have the ability to see into the future.

[GB12]

I'm not going to lie, I didn't mind at all that we didn't resign Linebrink.

[Postseason2006]

BTW...here's that scrub Inman's stats. 5 solid starts in a row.

 

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=William+Inman&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=488989

[danzig6767]

My view on Melvin is he's done a solid job in his time here, nothing more nothing less. I do think though that after the poor job that Bando and Taylor did, it's left some fans to overrate the performance by Doug.

 

I have no doubt that Attanasio will bring Melvin back next year and i would also even if we miss the playoffs, but i wonder if that's the case if we missed the playoffs again next year?

[trwi7]

I've been turning on Melvin lately. How much credit can we give him for the draft? I honestly have no idea but I can't imagine Melvin does much with the draft. He just lets Jack Z. and his scouts do their thing and pick the players. I don't see how he can get much credit for that. So with all the talented, cheap young players that have been given to Melvin to work with the best his team has achieved is an 83 win season. I really fail to see how that's "good."

[zzzmanwitz]

I've been turning on Melvin lately. How much credit can we give him for the draft? I honestly have no idea but I can't imagine Melvin does much with the draft. He just lets Jack Z. and his scouts do their thing and pick the players. I don't see how he can get much credit for that. So with all the talented, cheap young players that have been given to Melvin to work with the best his team has achieved is an 83 win season. I really fail to see how that's "good."

I'm just copying and pasting from my previous post.

 

This argument is used too much. Sure, Melvin didn't hire all the scouts and Jack Z, but why replace someone if they do a good job? He has built, both through hiring and keeping those already hired, a great scouting team that has done wonders on our farm system. Saying Melvin gets no credit for that is like saying Bill gates gets no credit for running Microsoft.

 

Melvin is the head of a giant team of personel evaluaters. If you give credit to his subordinates, DM should get just as much credit for assigning them that job.

 

[trwi7]

Sure, Melvin didn't hire all the scouts and Jack Z, but why replace someone if they do a good job?

 

Sorry, I'm just not going to give credit to someone because they didn't fire someone who was doing a good job. Isn't that a no brainer decision? Why should he get credit for that? If I get a new job running a business and I'm told from others around the town and from that persons' co-workers that so and so is doing a good job and then I look and see what a good job they're doing I'm obviously not going to fire him/her.

[danzig6767]

I've been turning on Melvin lately. How much credit can we give him for the draft? I honestly have no idea but I can't imagine Melvin does much with the draft. He just lets Jack Z. and his scouts do their thing and pick the players. I don't see how he can get much credit for that. So with all the talented, cheap young players that have been given to Melvin to work with the best his team has achieved is an 83 win season. I really fail to see how that's "good."

If you give credit to his subordinates, DM should get just as much credit for assigning them that job.

 

 

 

I can agree to a point, but i can only give so much credit for making what was a no brainer move to keep Zduriencik. I guess it's possible that Melvin could have come in and fired Zduriencik, but it wasn't exactly a brilliant move to keep in place a guy that had been doing a great job at fixing what had been a broken down farm system. If Melvin had hired Jack Z himself from another team or Zduriencik had done a very mediocre job before Doug arrived, but Melvin still had faith in him, then i'd give Doug more credit for keeping him in charge of the draft.

If anything, the thing i'd give the most credit to Melvin for in regards to all the young talent in the bigs and currently in the minors is that Doug really wasn't that involved in those guys getting drafted. He's said that he's in draft meetings and listens, but he doesn't butt in much and instead let's Zduriencik pick the players. Being able to check his ego at the door and let Jack handle the drafts is something i'm not sure all GM's would be willing to do.

 

[TheCrew07]

How many of those cheap talented players have lived up to the hype? I count 3, Braun, Hart, and Fielder. Hall was great 2 years ago, and crappy since. My boy Hardy is the ultimate roller coaster, Weeks is currently trending the wrong way... It's not like he has a team of all stars that fell into his lap. There's still plenty of time for the young kids to turn it around, though I'm admittedly not so sure that Hall ever will. The one place the farm system has failed to this point is pitching, the Brewers didn't get enough quality pitching through the system to go with the bats, and some of the bats haven't lived up to my expectations yet... I'm not talking all-stars year and year out, but I think both JJ and Rickie are capable of hitting much better than they have thus far in their careers. The upper system is still very heavy bat wise, and I hope they manage to turn some of those bats into long term pitching solutions and not waste them all on rental players trying to fill holes 1 year at a time.

 

It's been pointed out many times that both young pitchers from the Giants were available this off season, and the Brewers didn't have the ammunition at the time to make a move. Now that some of the prospects are more advanced and succeeding in AA it opens up many more trade opportunities for Melvin with prospects and with proven commodities on the big club. We just need to be patient, this could be a banner off season. I was one of those people that thought this crop would hit well enough to overcome a lack of pitching, but I was wrong and that hasn't been the case. That's on me, not Melvin, he's done a fantastic job finding value where there was none, especially when the club needed it the most. I'm not so sure that Mark A. didn't have alot to do with the Linebrink move and the Suppan signing. The more I read and the more I see him interviewed, he seems to have quite a bit of the "we must win now" attitude and I'm unsure how healthy that is long term.... he bought a franchise in rebuilding mode and there's no quick fix to building a solid franchise, it takes time and patience. Don't get me wrong, I really like him, but it makes me question how much he has his hands in the pot so to speak. The notion has been in the back of my mind since the Suppan signing and it only continues to build momentum, and this is as good a time as any to throw my concerns out into the void.

[trwi7]

How many of those cheap talented players have lived up to the hype?

Our best season in Melvin's tenure has been 83 wins. With that we had two 1.000 OPS players, one player who had nearly a .900 OPS, above average offensive middle infielders, an effective platoon in left field and an okay CF. We also had a slug at catcher but when you have two 1.000 OPS players with a .900 OPS player you have the makings of a great offense. Add the other players around them and the offense was well above average.

 

We then had over 250 innings of ace quality pitching between Sheets and Gallardo. The rest of the staff was poorly assembled (Vargas) or was bitten by our bad defense (which also falls on Melvin as well as the scouts and minor league instructors for thinking players could play the positions they were drafted as, like Braun at third base.) He and Yost also decided to go with a Counsell/Graffanino platoon which severely weakened the offense for nearly two months. We had Gabe Gross on the bench while either Graffanino or Counsell were playing everyday. Hall could've played third in that time and Braun could've been learning the outfield down in the minors. The bullpen was terrible. Greg Aquino, Jose Capellan, Chris Spurling and Elmer Dessens all spent far too much time on the major league roster. Many times in critical situations by Yost, who Melvin also hired but that's for another thread. In order to get bullpen help he decided to trade one of our best prospects, plus two more prospects for a free agent to be reliever who was on the decline.

[danzig6767]

How many of those cheap talented players have lived up to the hype? I count 3, Braun, Hart, and Fielder. Hall was great 2 years ago, and crappy since. My boy Hardy is the ultimate roller coaster, Weeks is currently trending the wrong way... It's not like he has a team of all stars that fell into his lap. There's still plenty of time for the young kids to turn it around, though I'm admittedly not so sure that Hall ever will.

One aspect you didn't factor in was money. Not only have Hart/Fielder/Prince been very productive, they are dirt cheap. Hardy and Weeks have been inconsistent, but they haven't been bad and Melvin has been able to fill those positions with two more dirt cheap players. All these young players who make pocket change allows Melvin to spend money elsewhere, few if any GM's have that luxury.

[Postseason2006]

The problem is the money he has spent elsewhere. Giving the jack he did to a one year wonder in Turnbow was horrific and been a trainwreck. Gag was a terrible move especially after he imploded for Boston. And having another free swinger in the lineup with Cameron is not what the Brewers needed but a high OBP kind of player.

[pogokat]

i think hardy is being overrated and underrated at the same time...the first half of last year was above hardy's head...other than that, he's been exactly what should have been expected...a steady major league starter with 15 home run power who doesn't walk much and plays good defense..

[PeaveyFury]

Giving the jack he did to a one year wonder in Turnbow was horrific and been a trainwreck.

 

That 'jack' was a whopping 6.5 million over three years. I don't know how a contract can be a trainwreck for that amount of money in today's baseball.

[PeaveyFury]

I guess I'm puzzled as to why this discussion was re-kindled- the team is now living up to expectations for the most part, as the team is 7 games over .500 at the exact half way point (on pace for 86 wins), and generally living up to expectations at this point, even though Gallardo has missed almost the entire year to this point. The only move from the offseason that has been truly bad was Gagne, while signing Kapler, Branyan, and Kendall have proven to be great moves, trading for Torres was fantastic, and Mota and Cameron have largely given the team what was expected of them to this point. I guess I don't see where the heat on Melvin should be coming from at this point. If the team finishes 86-76 and are in the playoff race for the rest of the year, this thread is completely moot.

[Fatter than Joey]

You need to wait and see how a guy pans out before judging the trade one way or the other.

 

I disagree..... I have to imagine as DM was pitching this deal to his superiors he identified 2 objectives to making the Linebrink deal.

 

1.) DM wanted to bolster the Brewers BP for the 2007 playoff run.

2.) Receive a couple of draft picks to restock the minors.

 

*****

 

1.) The Brewers did not give up any MLB players to get Linebrink -- It was not a trade that "stole from Peter to pay Paul" -- that is to say, we were adding Linebrink w/o creating a hole at another spot on the field. So far so good. Speaking only to the 2007 playoff race -- Linebrink just had to be better than the pitchers he was replacing for the Brewers to satisfy this objective for DM. Unfortunately Linebrink did not do this. According to BP.com, Linebrink at best was a league replacement pitcher, or worse. Furthermore, he was not pitching well with SD before the trade, I am not sure why DM was thinking Linebrink could help the Brewers playoff chances in 2007. I am convinced that DM FAILED to achieve objective 1.

 

2.) Objective #2 is pretty cut and dry for me. The Brewers received 2 draft picks. DM SUCCEEDED on this front.

 

Where I depart from most of BF.net, is the idea that we have "to wait and see" how these drafted players pan out to determine the value of the trade. To me, the resultant of the draft is largely a function of luck.

 

For Example, if DM would have traded for the 62nd round pick, we would have been up in arms -- if that 62nd rd pick would have turned out to be Mike Piazza (as it was for the 1988 Dodgers) we would have been ecstatic -- but that would have been pure luck.

 

The way I view making transactions to net draft picks -- is like trading players for a chance to spin some imaginary wheel of luck. If you get a 1st rd. pick -- your "wheel of luck" is more likely to pay off for you, if you get a sandwich pick, your "wheel of luck" is less likely to score than the 1st rd wheel, but better than the second.

 

So basically we traded Inman & Garrison for a chance to spin the "sandwich wheel" and the "2nd round wheel" -- Would I trade Inman and Garrison straight up to make those spins? -- Probably not, but I don't think DM was necessarily stupid for taking that chance -- Especially if DM thought Linebrink could help the 2007 Brewers playoff run -- but that is precisely where I think DM erred. I have no idea why he thought Linebrink would help our team. If DM would have done this deal for a different pitcher -- I'd feel a lot different about this deal.

 

So for me, DM failed overall in this trade, and I don't need to see what the draft picks pan out to be. If they turn out well, I think that is a function of luck in a large part.

[Fatter than Joey]

That 'jack' was a whopping 6.5 million over three years. I don't know how a contract can be a trainwreck for that amount of money in today's baseball.

 

It wasn't the money as much as it was being committed to a trainwreck of a pitcher for 2006-2008.

 

If the team finishes 86-76 and are in the playoff race for the rest of the year, this thread is completely moot.

 

I disagree -- 86 wins is not going to get you into the playoffs in most years --- unless you are in a weak division -- if a better GM could get 90 wins, the Brewers would be stupid to not look at upgrading the GM spot.

[homer]

FTJ,

I agree that waiting on draft picks to show their mettle is a pretty thin argument. If you are making trades on the assumption that you'll recoup your losses via the draft you will be sad more than you will be happy. Let's face it, Jack Z has bombed on several high rounders. Yes, on the whole he's been successful with those high picks but to say it's a guarantee that Fredrickson and Nails Jr. pan out is a HUGE stretch. Not only that but odds are neither gives you what Inman and Garrison are already giving you in AA.

 

My problem with that trade is that I felt Inman and Garrison could have netted more than a three month rental of a middling middle reliever which is ultimately what this trade needs to be judged on. So yes, we can use future performance to measure this trade but to me it has to be through Inman and Garrison's value rather than the draft picks.

[silversurferr]

At the time, I liked the Linebrink trade. We needed an established reliever, and we gave up one prospect, Imman (from what I read, his reasonable ceiling is somewhat like Villanueva's), and two very average prospects, Garrison (age) and (Thatcher will overachieve if he reaches mediocrity). Dougie's maneuver was a good gamble; giving us a shot to compete now, without mortgaging the future. To get someone better than Linebrink would've cost a lot more. At the present, we received a comp pick who has the potential to reach the bigs. Overall, Melvin did a good job in a no-win situation. What bugs me is giving up on Sarfate and Eveland; guys who were at the big league level, had good arms, but were not given a fair chance. Either one of them could do a reasonable Riske or Gummy Mota impression. As with most clubs, I think Melvin, Yost and Maddux put too much emphasis on "big league experience," even where that experience has been mediocre to bad.

[Fatter than Joey]

Let's face it, Jack Z has bombed on several high rounders.

 

He has -- and I don't intend to be critical of Jack Z. - the draft is a crap shoot, all GMs are going to have their hits & busts.

 

My problem with that trade is that I felt Inman and Garrison could have netted more than a three month rental of a middling middle reliever which is ultimately what this trade needs to be judged on.

 

Agreed 100% -- If we make that trade for a better pitcher than Linebrink, I am all ears.

 

To get someone better than Linebrink would've cost a lot more.

 

Sure -- but we would have been better off to let Thatcher pitch, as SD did. Nothing that Linebrink was doing in SD indicated he was a solid pitcher.

 

Overall, Melvin did a good job in a no-win situation.

 

He could have traded Inman for a better pitcher.