Time to start looking at Melvin?

[MickeyDavis]

Payroll will be hitting a plateau soon. Remember, Attanasio is not the sole owner, he is just part of an ownership group and that group is looking for a return on their investment, and not when they eventually sell the team. This group will not go into the red in the short term.

 

How does a team increase it's revenues:

 

1. New ballpark. We have that.

 

2. Increase attendance. We're at about 33,000. We could average 35,000-37,000 if we turn the season around. So there is room to increase attendance, but not by much.

 

3. Increased ticket prices. Doable, but not by a lot.

 

4. TV/Radio revenue. We are locked into our deals through 2012. And being one of the smallest markets there is definitely a limit on how high these contracts could go, even with a good team.

 

5. Other revenue sources. The Brewers have been creative in generating other revenue and will continue to do so. But there is a limited amount of marketing revenue available in this market.

 

Mark A has tripled payroll, from $27.5 million to over $80 million today. While payroll can increase, those increases will be much smaller than we have seen the past few years.

[jeffy]

Being in a small market is like being a boxer with one arm tied behind your back.

This is no longer an excuse. The Brewers are right in the middle of the pack in terms of team payroll.

I'd respectfully disagree.

Okay...how about while it may be a valid reason to expect less frequent post season appearances by the Brewers than for the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, etc., an average payroll should lead to a post season appearance, say, at least once per decade?

[MickeyDavis]

It took the Brewers a long time to get to the middle of the pack. And that's probably about the best we can hope for. And when you are in the middle (or lower) you can't afford to make mistakes. The Sheets decision is a huge one for this organization. A bigger market team would have already signed him to an extension. If it doesn't work out, they just sign someone else. We can't do that. The Suppan signing has been a mixed bag but had he blown out his arm last year it would have screwed us over the entire 4 years of his deal.

[mikemercury]

Tbadder wrote:

---

from them. When I look back I think that the Pods/Lee trade was Melvin's best trade (Locking up Jack Z. was his best overall move). He moved Pods after a terrific season and an okay season. When you ressurect a player like Turnblow or Clark or Davis, I think you have to have the discipline to dump that player after a year to two years for max value. Sure it might happen to screw your team up in the short term, but you can't afford to put all your faith in these kinds of players. Just think of the return we could've got for Turnblow at the All-Star break. What might Clark have netted us if we had traded him after his breakout season? What kind of catcher could we have gotten if we had traded Davis a year earlier? It's hard to know, and I'm not saying we'd get someone as good as Carlos Lee, but I'm guessing we would've gotten something better and more long term.

 

---

I don't think it's very easy to move scrap heap nuggets after 1 good season for 3 reasons. That could have a career year for the player, which scares teams off. (Which is the case for guys you mentioned) Other teams look kind of foolish when they trade something of value for a player they could have had for basically nothing a few months earlier. Most nuggets that Melvin found are usually very cheap. A cheap contract is a key ingredient when dealing with payroll constraints. I realize that Clark and Turnbow never really lived up to their contracts, but remeber they were only getting Craig Council/Dave Bush/Arby type money.

[TooLiveBrew]

It's fine for fans to fall in love with players. We're just fans. But when management starts doing it, we're in trouble

 

The ironic part is that the people erroneously 'in love' are those cherry-picking less than two months at the beginning of a season while ignoring other relevant data... then muddling the argument by claiming those pointing out the relevant data that's being omitted are just homers, essentially.

 

Injuries matter because they don't give a true picture of player talent. If you want to continue to analyze Weeks on 50% of his healthy time, intentionally omitting the 50% where he was productive, then I guess you feel like that's the way to go.

[logan82]

Why aren't we looking at Jack Z as well? He drafted all these all hit no field guys we currently have on our roster. He also has been really bad at drafting pitchers.

[Gobias Industries]

Why aren't we looking at Jack Z as well? He drafted all these all hit no field guys we currently have on our roster. He also has been really bad at drafting pitchers.

Good point logan. That's why if we could get DePodesta and some of the scouts he had with him in Los Angeles I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it.

[MickeyDavis]

I think there is a lot more "cherry picking" involved when trying to find Weeks hot streaks.

[logan82]

I think most people who like Weeks don't look at any streaks and see that he has a higher career OBP than the best one year OBP put up by anybody on our team outside of Braun, Fielder, and Kendall.

[TooLiveBrew]

I think there is a lot more "cherry picking" involved when trying to find Weeks hot streaks.

 

I'm sorry, this is getting frustrating. 50% of his healthy time in MLB he's raked. The other 50%, which happens to be most recently, he's struggled. Please tell me how that is possibly categorized as 'cherry picking.'

[THEbrewguru]

Turnbow contract (waste of money)

What people don't understand about Doug Melvin and it's clearly showing in this thread is that as a GM for a small market team you have to take calculated risks. Turnbow was coming off of a 39 save season and in order to get cost certainty he gave Turnbow a whooping 3 milliions dollars. Big deal. What if they didn't sign him and he put in another 40 save season? Then he would have cost 10 million.

What you fail to mention is that he could have done the same with Cordero last year but refused to do so. He had a great second half in '06 and talked to Melvin in spring training about an extension and Melvin told him to wait until after the season.

 

I'm sure you'll come back with, "But Cordero was over half a season and Turnbow's 39 saves came in a full season." True, but Turnbow was picked up off waivers the previous year, so he wasn't highly thought of. At the contract signing point, he was still 3 years away from free agency.

 

But Melvin has a habit of signing flukes to multi-year contracts. Brady Clark and Wes Helms come to mind also.

[splitterpfj]

Some of this, I don't hang on Jack Z. When Weeks was drafted, scouts everywhere said this was a player who should be moved to the outfield, which was also true of Braun.

 

I don't know who's decision it was to keep those players on the infield, but they absolutely went against the consensus with both guys, and they were wrong with both guys. Perhaps if Weeks and Braun had been groomed as outfielders in the first place, the team would have dealt for, or drafted better options at 2B and 3B. Prince is a 1B, but the other guys who have had fielding issues could have, and should have been moved to different positions years before they reached Milwaukee.

 

The one issue I have with Jack is his track record with pitching. I hate it when we take a high school arm in round one, which Jack has done three times here, while never taking a college arm first. I realize developing pitching is the toughest part of the job, and that no pitcher is truly a safe pick, but it does seem to me that college guys have a higher chance of succeeding, because they offer more for scouts to evaluate.

 

Jack has taken three pitchers in the first round, the first two got hurt, and may never see the major leagues, the third guy has been "experimenting" a bit much to this point, and may also wind up missing his chance. Apart from Gallardo and Sheets, this organization has done a horrible job of developing pitchers for the last 15-20 years.

[THEbrewguru]

Melvin is a very good general manager. He has built a system that will help the Brewer be competitive year in and year out. That is his biggest accomplishment.

Actually, Dean Taylor built the system, Melvin just maintained it and kept Jack Z.

[THEbrewguru]

I'm of the opinon that it's time for Melvin to leave with Yost. I think the one reason he's keeping Yost around is because if he gets rid of him, then the spotlight suddenly moves to Melvin.

 

What has he done since he's been here? One great trade (Lee for Podsednik) and not much else.

 

For Richie Sexson, he got 6 schlubs.

For Lyle Overbay, he got 3 mediocre players.

For Carlos Lee, he got a closer (which he got lucky on) and 3 terrible players (well, 2 terrible and I don't know what happened to the pitcher).

For Doug Davis and Dana Eveland, he got one year from a bad catcher and 2 bad pitchers.

 

Then look at this off-season. You are not going to break up your nucleus (Fielder-Weeks-Hardy-Braun-Hart), so he had a couple decisions to make. He brought in Kendall because there aren't really any catchers available. Then, he had to make a decision. Keep Hall in center and get a left fielder or third baseman. Or move Hall back to third and get a centerfielder. He chose option B, which is, was and always has been a Bill Hall clone (high strikeouts, limited power, low average). Bad move.

 

As for pitching, he panicked when he lost Cordero and offered Gagne an outrageous contract (when he was bidding against no one). He remade the bullpen and it could be either very good or very bad. But he was content with the starting rotation. He had quantity, but not quality. He had 2 good to great pitchers in Sheets and Gallardo and 1 average (Suppan). The other 5 were either bad veterans (Capuano, Vargas, Bush) or young kids with potential (Villanueva, Parra).

 

However, if he wanted to make the next step, that is, go from 2 games out to a playoff team, you needed to get a quality pitcher in here and Melvin failed miserably.

 

He has the same team he put together in Texas...free swinging offense with mediocre pitching.

[logan82]

Here's my line of thinking. People are blaming Yost for poor fundamentals on our team. We have players on our team playing out of position(Hall, Weeks, Fielder) who were brought up quickly through our system(Melvin) and were drafted with huge flaws in their game(Jack Z). I think there is a system wide failure in the front office. I think this team can turn things around, but our draft needs to turn somewhat towards drafting more complete players and leaving them in the minors to get more polish like in the case of Corey Hart.

[MickeyDavis]

I think the one reason he's keeping Yost around is because if he gets rid of him, then the spotlight suddenly moves to Melvin.

I agree with you there. Change managers and continue losing = hotseat for DM. Don't change managers and the heat stays on Ned the rest of the season.

[twobrewers]

Actually, Dean Taylor built the system, Melvin just maintained it and kept Jack Z.

I said "a" system - not "the" system.

 

I am not referring to the minor league teams exclusively. I am referring to Melvin's goal of competing year in and year out. Melvin has a philosophy in place that stresses long term success instead of short sighted goals. (Think Yankees v. Marlins)

 

Melvin could have made many moves to "go for it this year". Instead he keep building the team piece by piece. We could have traded LaPorta and Gamel this off-season to try and make our final push. We could have made a big splash in free agency that might handcuff the Brewers for years to come. (Cordero)

 

And Gallardo still would have gotten hurt - likely leaving the Brewers on the outside of the playoffs.

 

Anything can happen any year. I would rather be a consistent 85 win team than win 90 one year and 65 the next.

[tristarscoop]

But every other move we made and every word out of Doug/Ned/Attanasio's mouth this off-season was that this was our "go for it year". The management, since the end of last season, has done nothing but say it's this year or no year. Do or die.

[twobrewers]

For Richie Sexson, he got 6 schlubs.

For Lyle Overbay, he got 3 mediocre players.

For Carlos Lee, he got a closer (which he got lucky on) and 3 terrible players (well, 2 terrible and I don't know what happened to the pitcher).

For Doug Davis and Dana Eveland, he got one year from a bad catcher and 2 bad pitchers.

There are so many mistakes in that sentiment.

 

He got 6 "schlubs" for Sexson - but then was able to turn ONE of those "schlubs" into 3 mediocre players?

 

Sexson was going to leave via free agency. We received many starters out of the deal. Capuano was an all-star and had one season where he lead the league in quality starts. He was very, very good for the Brewers. Overbay was an above average player. Spivey got us Ohka. Ohka was a respectable starter. Moeller & De La Rosa had their up and downs with the Brewers. But we ended up trading one year of Sexson away from a combination of many other seasons.

 

Overbay was an above average player. He got an average pitcher (Bush), a platoon OF (Gross) and a AAAA player (Zach Jackson) Sounds like a pretty fair trade. Do you think Toronto could get more for him if they dealt him now? Overbay hasn't exactly thrived in Toronto.

 

Carlos Lee was also about to leave via free agency. To get 1 1/2 years of Cordero (And the two draft picks that came from him leaving via free agency) was a great deal. If Carlos had stayed, we would not have made the playoff. We would have gotten two draft picks for him leaving. So we got 1 1/2 years of Cordero for free. You notion that Melvin was "lucky" is rediculous.

 

Doug Davis was going to leave via free agency as well. Vargas and Estrada were both starters. Eveland might have never blossomed if he hadn't been traded. (He was fat and out of shape as a Brewer. I think being traded gave him some motivation) Still, I have no problem saying Melvin lost this trade. But it wasn't that one-sided. (Did you really want to pay Davis $7 million a year?)

 

It is insane to look at only the players involved in trades. In order to do any kind of assessment you have to look at their salary, when they will be free agents, the possible compensation draft picks related to them, and many other factors.

[twobrewers]

The management, since the end of last season, has done nothing but say it's this year or no year. Do or die.

I think you are mistaken.

 

Management has made comments along the lines of "this is the year" meaning that all of the core players are old enough to realistically expect playoffs and beyond.

 

No one has made any comments about us not being competitive in the future. ("or no year. Do or die.")

[THEbrewguru]

I would rather be a consistent 85 win team than win 90 one year and 65 the next.

85 wins every year but NEVER make the playoffs. OK, fine.

[TooLiveBrew]

What are you talking about? 85 wins made the playoffs last year in the NL Central.

[THEbrewguru]

Sexson was going to leave via free agency. We received many starters out of the deal.

Who cares if Sexson was going to leave in free agency? You still have a 45-homer, 120 RBI, top 5 first baseman in MLB and traded him for nothing.

 

The Brewers received "many" starters, but how proud are you that Chad Moeller started? Or Junior Spivey? Ohka was a below average pitcher. Capuano was an all-star? Oh, boy. That and 50 cents can buy you a newspaper. Robin Yount made only 3 all-star teams in his career. How legitimate is being chosen for an all-star team? Fernando Vina, Jose Valentin and Ellie Rodriquez were also all-stars for the Brewers. Overbay was a little bit above average which pales in comparison to what he replaced or what followed him.

For this above average player, he got a #5 starter, a #5 outfielder (on what planet is Gabe Gross a platoon player??) and, by your admission a AAAA pitcher, which really doesn't help the Brewers much.

 

Melvin got lucky with Cordero because in Texas, he was what Derrick Turnbow is to Milwaukee. Hated. Reviled. Demoted from closer. But he found it again with the Brewers. No one expected that. I could care less about draft picks because they won't help the Brewers this year or next. And the way Jack Z. drafts after the first round, I don't expect much help anyway. Maybe he can draft a couple more DH's. But if you're so happy with draft picks, maybe he should have taken them a year earlier, so that they could help us by 2010.

 

How was Doug Davis going to leave in free agency? It's not like he signed a $15 million/year contract with the D-Backs. $7 million is the going rate. He's probably a better pitcher than Suppan for $3 million less. You are proud of the contributions of Vargas and Estrada? Do you follow this team?

 

 

(pared back long quote --1992)

[THEbrewguru]

What are you talking about? 85 wins made the playoffs last year in the NL Central.

 

I stand corrected. 85 wins has gotten you into the playoffs in a full season exactly 5 times in baseball history.

 

That's something to hang your hat on.

[TooLiveBrew]

Your condescension certainly is too