Analyzing Doug Melvin's career transactions with Brewers

[adambr2]

I thought it might be good to have a thread breaking down Doug Melvin's moves with the Brewers, both signings and trades, to see how he good of a job he's done for us. I'm sure I'll forget some, so feel free to add.

 

 

Richie Sexson/Shane Nance/Noochie Varner for Junior Spivey/Craig Counsell/Lyle Overbay/Chris Capuano/Jorge De La Rosa

 

This was definitely one of Melvin's better deals at the time. He was able to get Arizona to make an excessive offer for Sexson, who was clearly on his way out of Milwaukee at the time. Spivey was a decent stop-gap at 2nd for Weeks. Counsell was a servicable utility player. Overbay was a great stop-gap for Prince and eventually turned over for more players. Capuano's best days are behind him, but he was a huge part of our rotation in '05 and '06 and former All-Star. De La Rosa, had a good deal of potential, but never panned out as a Brewer.

 

Lyle Overbay for Dave Bush/Gabe Gross/Zach Jackson

 

 

Gross was a solid bench player, and Jackson, who was supposed to be the gem of this deal, never really panned out as a prospect, starting only sparingly in the majors as a spot starter call-up. This was still a good trade in the sense that he got a decent starter (Bush) for an average first baseman, though Overbay was very popular in Milwaukee.

 

Doug Davis/Dana Eveland for Johhny Estrada/Claudio Vargas

 

Not one of Melvin's better moves, though it was likely that Davis was on his way out anyway. Estrada was disappointing in Milwaukee, and Vargas was let go after a so-so season. Eveland would be a pretty decent option for our rotation right now.

Carlos Lee/Nelson Cruz for Francisco Cordero/Kevin Mench/Laynce Nix

 

Not a bad deal considering Lee's days in Milwaukee were numbered. Cruz ended up being no loss for us. Mench and Nix had no real positive impact for us, but Cordero shored up our problems at closer for the rest of '06 and all of '07.

 

Scott Linebrink for Will Inman/Joe Thatcher/Steve Garrison

 

Not a great deal, but not as bad as some make it out to be, since Linebrink was turned over for two more prospects at the end of the season, this deal ended up being a near wash.

 

 

Signings:

 

Jeff Suppan- Soup has been pretty disappointing, but I'd put a lot of blame for this one on Mark A.

 

Eric Gagne - Another disappointment, but no long-term affect on the payroll. Another one where Mark A. had a pretty strong hand in the deal.

 

David Riske - Has been disappointing so far, but it remains to be seen whether Riske can rebound from some '08 injuries to regain his effective form in 2009 and beyond.

 

Ryan Braun - Just a great signing here, and it's not too early to say that.

 

Bill Hall - Looked like a good deal at the time, but Melvin overpaid for Hall after a breakout '06. Hall has not impressed since then.

 

Mike Cameron - Nothing to write home about, but a pretty good stop-gap in CF to take care of that position for us for 2 years.

 

Jason Kendall - Again, nothing spectacular, but shored up our defensive catching problems and gave us a servicable catching stopgap for Salome.

 

 

Minor trades/transactions:

 

Trading Wayne Franklin for Villanueva ended up being a great deal for us, and trading a minor prospect for Torres may have been a difference maker in making the playoffs in '08. The Gabe Kapler signing was a great one year deal, while the Seth McClung/Grant Balfour trade worked out pretty well for both parties, though obviously it'd be nice to have Balfour now. Turnbow was a great scrapheap signing for a time, although he has since lost pretty much all psychological ability to pitch at any level.

 

Summary:

Like most GM's, Melvin has had both great moves and busts, some moves of which have looked different depending on the time that you looked at it. It also seems like it would be in Mark Antanassio's best interest to shy away from influencing Melvin and let him do his job on his own, though some may believe that if Mark A. hadn't forced Melvin's hand in firing Yost, we wouldn't have made the playoffs in '08. Overall, Melvin seems to have a pretty good handle on his job and hasn't made any major mistakes as general manager.

[adambr2]

My apoligies for how this ended up looking after posting...I'm trying to figure out how to fix it up with my limited HTML abilities.

EDIT: Okay, fixed. I just learned something else -- FireFox = Good for editing on here. GoogleChrome = Bad.

[Ennder]

Eveland had a 5.33 tERA last year, he had a decent stretch because of a pitchers park and luck but he still hasn't really had any value at this point. That still wasn't a great trade but who knows if Estrada and Vargas don't both get injured in 2007 and slide after the injuries maybe it would look ok. Overall he has done well with trades I think, he just has thrown a lot of money at mediocre players with mediocre to bad results.

[silversurferr]

Carlos Lee for Cordero was a great trade. We got Lee for Podsednik, who Melvin got on waivers. Overbay, essentially a spare part, for Bush, was a very good trade.

[PeaveyFury]

Yeah, I don't know how Lee for Podsednick/Vizcaino was omitted, as it was probably Melvin's best deal by far.

[BREWCREW5]

adambr2 wrote:

 

Signings:

 

Jeff Suppan- Soup has been pretty disappointing, but I'd put a lot of blame for this one on Mark A.

 

Eric Gagne - Another disappointment, but no long-term affect on the payroll. Another one where Mark A. had a pretty strong hand in the deal.

Is there some proof for this? I have a feeling some take this as fact because it has been posted on this forum.

[Invader3K]

No, there is no actual proof. It's just one of those things that certain people here on this board have repeatedly suggested, so many take it as fact.

 

I guess the general consensus is that if a move goes well, then it was Melvin being a good GM. If the move goes bad, then certainly our meddlesome owner must have orchestrated it.

[logan82]

Invader3K wrote:

I guess the general consensus is that if a move goes well, then it was Melvin being a good GM. If the move goes bad, then certainly our meddlesome owner must have orchestrated it.

Wrong. Nobody is blaming Mark A. for any of the bad trades that went down. The Suppan and Gagne deals along with the firing of Yost are all moves that seem out of character for Doug Melvin. Nobody has ever claimed the Mark A has for a fact meddled in the deals. Nobody has ever claimed that it isn't his right to do so either. Almost every other deal is either short term(Kendall, Cameron) or with a player we have control of ans buy out a couple free agent years(Hall, Braun). If we blamed every bad deal on Mark A. we would also be putting the Hall deal at his feet as well. As of yet that has not been the case. If you think that Melvin is 100% responsiblefor every deal, that's certainly your right. I and others just disagree.

[ILuvDaBush]

Well with Suppan, he was overtly wooed by Mark A. Much like the Schilling signing with the Red Sox, Mark A. took it upon himself to entertain the highly sought after FA at his own house. The Gagne signing, however, would seem to be all Mustache.

 

Also, the Torres trade was an exchange of a couple middling prospects for the once-and-future-closer.

 

And honestly, I still look upon the Sexson trade as THE trade that developed the Brewers, though it could be because of the amount of AB's Sexson took for the Snakes. If only he would have traded Cappy at his apex to the Red Sox for a young pitcher (I believe Papelbon/Sanchez/Alvarez were my top three targets at the time...pretty HIT (Paps) or MISS (Alvarez) with something a bit blemished or dirty in the middle).

[BREWCREW5]

Wrong. Nobody is blaming Mark A. for any of the bad trades that went down. The Suppan and Gagne deals along with the firing of Yost are all moves that seem out of character for Doug Melvin. Nobody has ever claimed the Mark A has for a fact meddled in the deals. Nobody has ever claimed that it isn't his right to do so either. Almost every other deal is either short term(Kendall, Cameron) or with a player we have control of ans buy out a couple free agent years(Hall, Braun). If we blamed every bad deal on Mark A. we would also be putting the Hall deal at his feet as well. As of yet that has not been the case. If you think that Melvin is 100% responsiblefor every deal, that's certainly your right. I and others just disagree.

It is absolutely fine as long as people state that it is there opinion, however most of the time, people state it as fact (beginning with the first post of this thread).

[logan82]

BREWCREW5 wrote:

It is absolutely fine as long as people state that it is there opinion, however most of the time, people state it as fact (beginning with the first post of this thread).

I guess you and I just see things differently. Unless somebody posts a link or quote I take almost everything posted here as opinion.

[MNBrew]

Didn't Melvin also pull in Doug Davis, Dan Kolb, & Brady Clark off waivers? As much as some folks love to deride him on this site, Clark was a pretty solid & respectable pickup -- and even if he was only average, he was still a good improvement over Alex Sanchez. And Kolb was nothing short of stellar his 1st stint in BrewTown (low K-rate in his 2nd year notwithstanding).

 

Getting Brian Shouse for Rule V uber-bust Enrique Cruz was sheer genius.

 

Getting Guillermo Mota for Estrada was seen as a garbage-for-garbage deal, mainly a swap of contracts, but other than his super crappy month-plus, Mota was pretty darn good. I'd actually go for re-signing him for $1.5-2M if he'd take the deal.

 

Getting Carlos Villanueva for two bad pitchers who otherwise would've been cut (Wayne Franklin, who showed some potential at one point, and Leo Estrella, who did not) was perhaps Melvin's great future-speculative move of his Brewers tenure.

 

Turning Jorge De La Rose around for Tony Graffanino was brilliant.

 

Getting Tomo Ohka, though unspectacular, for Junior Spivey while Spivey still had value, was a solid move, in part because it helped add Rickie Weeks to the roster -- which was also a good move at the time and would look even better if he'd shown significant progress in fulfilling the potential of his bat.

 

Letting Jeff Cirillo talk him into a tryout was brilliant, too, but mainly thanks to Cirillo. I'll also posit that NOT bringing back Cirillo, either after '06 or for '08, was not a great decision, not to mention quite disappointing -- the former especially because it meant having to deal with 2 years of Craig Counsell, who, in spite of his LH bat, for the most part added nothing, which certainly wouldn't've been the case with Cirillo.

 

And while it'd be pointing out the elephant in the room, no one else has mentioned it yet (I don't think)....

 

Getting Ace Starter CC Sabathia and ending the playoff drought for some high-end prospects, while the long-term return for Cleveland can't be judged for some time, was clearly the single best trade Melvin may ever have made.

 

Sure, Todd Ritchie was a signing bust, but he didn't cost much and was easy to dump. And Javier Valentin would've been a much better alternative than Chad Moeller or the last year of Damian Miller (still a good signing at the time), but in all that wasn't a very painful move (not that Jason Conti gave us anything at all except a worse K-rate than Cameron).

 

But in general I have a lot of faith in Melvin's moves. So if he doesn't feel he was getting offered decent value in return for Mike Cameron (another solid signing, all things considered), I have total trust in his choosing NOT to pull the trigger.

[truecrew]

MNBrew- all great moves by Melvin I must agree... I do think the JDL for Graffy was a brilliant move he was a great utility guy and even had a few games in LF. And I had forgot about Tomo Ohka...I think Melvin has overall done a good job its hard to be a GM and he has done just as good as anyother GM out there.

[BrewCrewForever]

And before Melvin flipped Podsednik for Lee I believe he got Podsednik of waivers as well. Melvin seems to be great at finding guys of the scrap heap and they end up being good at least for short term.

[Ennder]

Letting Jeff Cirillo talk him into a tryout was brilliant, too, but mainly thanks to Cirillo. I'll also posit that NOT bringing back Cirillo, either after '06 or for '08, was not a great decision, not to mention quite disappointing -- the former especially because it meant having to deal with 2 years of Craig Counsell, who, in spite of his LH bat, for the most part added nothing, which certainly wouldn't've been the case with Cirillo.

 

Nice post though I'd disagree with this part of it. Cirillo can only play 3B at an adequate level and only vs lefties, Counsell was a more useful player than Cirillo over that stretch.

[twobrewers]

Getting Tomo Ohka, though unspectacular, for Junior Spivey while Spivey still had value, was a solid move

Ohka never gets any love. He posted a very servicable 4.38 and 4.85 ERA while in Milwaukee. Spivey was junk at that point - any time you get a #4 pitcher for junk...that equals a win.

 

So if he doesn't feel he was getting offered decent value in return for Mike Cameron (another solid signing, all things considered)

A lot of people are forgetting the huge impact Cameron had on the Brewers. He carried the team in August. And his personality was all over this young squad. The team actually seemed depressed when he had to serve his suspension and giddy like school girls upon his return. A good argument can be made that Cameron was the heart and soul of the Brewers last year.

 

Cruz ended up being no loss for us.

Cruz still has a chance to contribute at the MLB level. In 115 at bats he put up over a 1.000 OPS last year. He has holes, but he still has lots of power too.

Scott Linebrink for Will Inman/Joe Thatcher/Steve Garrison

I love how quiet the critics of this trade have become. Inman had a very good year - but really fell off the "prospect" status as the pure stuff just isn't there. I don't even like the two players we received from the Linebrink draft picks, but they do have more potential than the pitchers we gave up.

[JohnBriggs12]

I think the best move of Melvin's tenure was signing Braun for 7 years. I still can't believe he accomplished that.

 

Melvin's worst move was signing Turnbow to a multi year deal. That resulted in them sticking with him to the detriment of the team. Turnbow had a pattern of being erratic prior to his big 2005. Given the nature of relievers, that should have been a red flag.

[homer]

I'm still and forever will be a critic of that Linebrink trade. Getting a middle reliever for two months of work is not a move to put you in the playoff hunt. If they had gotten something more long term (i.e. bullpen help for '08) I wouldn't mind it so much.

[Gobias Industries]

That's an impressive body of work for Doug.

 

The only transactions that look bad are the Suppan signing, Hall signing, and the Davis/Eveland trade. Riske has the potential to be a poor signing, but nobody can really blame him for that. We needed a reliever and Melvin went out and got one of the best available at the going rate.

 

It's hard to blame Melvin for the Hall signing. I think pretty much everyone here liked it at the time. It was pretty hard to predict such a dropoff during his prime years.

 

I never really got the public outrage of Gagne getting 10 million. Sure, he sucked. But it was for only one year and it didn't prohibit us from going out and getting the biggest prize at the deadline. If anyone was to blame for that, it would be Yost for keeping him as closer until Gagne told the media he didn't deserve it. It was easy to see after April that the guy was cooked.

[twobrewers]

Getting a middle reliever for two months of work is not a move to put you in the playoff hunt.

I don't want to divert the thread - but getting a middle reliever was to help push towards the playoff. In the end, I believe the Brewers saw more value in two high draft picks than Inman, Garrison & Thatcher.

[TheCrew07]

Getting Ace Starter CC Sabathia and ending the playoff drought for some high-end prospects, while the long-term return for Cleveland can't be judged for some time, was clearly the single best trade Melvin may ever have made.

I know I'm in the minority around here, but I think any poster's opinion of that deal hinges largely on what the playoff appearance meant to him/her personally. To me, if we made the playoffs only to get bounced in the first round it wouldn't mean that much, and unfortunately that's exactly what happened. 2008 was never "the year" for me, the team had a couple of holes that they couldn't fill and we would have needed every break to fall our way, and that just doesn't happen often in sports. For me personally, acquiring Sabathia severely limited what this team could do going forward, I always have and still favor long term solutions vs rentals.\

 

I appreciate that a great many people just wanted a post season, but I'm concerned that making the post season will end up limiting our rotation possibilities going froward.

 

I think if DM has a major failing, he throws money at average players way too quickly... Turnbow, Clark, Hall, Helms... Hall actually put up 2 pretty good seasons in a row, but he was one of those guys I could just never get behind because I dislike how he plays the game, but the other guys were sort of 1 year wonders when they got their money. He also seems to overspend on the bullpen, which is another area I wish he wouldn't spend money on. I realize that the system hasn't helped him on the pitching side with Sheets, Villy, Parra, and Yo being the only homegrown contributors on the staff but in general I would prefer the team's payroll to be tied to it's greatest contributors.

[alorrigan]

What about the moves he didn't make -- good or bad.

 

He didn't sign Carlos Lee to a terrible contract.

He didn't sign Cordero to a terrible contract.

So far he hasn't traded Cameron for Melky Cabrera.

Give up the bank for C.C.

All good moves in my opinion.

 

Just things that came off the top of my head.

 

For a team with very limited resources he's done a great job of keeping the team competitive by bringing up the young guys and sprinkling in veterans here and there.

[Fatter than Joey]

Should have fired Yost a LOT sooner.

[DougJones43]

Should have fired Yost a LOT sooner.

That's a biggie. And if Mark A hadn't (allegedly) stepped in, Yost might still be the manager for 2009.

 

Melvin has had several solid moves -- Podsednik and Vizcaino for Carlos Lee being his best move IMO. And even though it's not really a move that figures to benefit the team for the longterm, I'm glad Melvin pulled the plug on the Sabathia deal. Making it to the playoffs was great, and there's no way it happens without CC. Granted, without LaPorta, that deal is not a possibility...

 

That said, I think the sum of all of his general managing has been pretty average. He was very good at turning a laughingstock franchise into a respectable one. I don't think he's done much to elevate the team to the next level though, as I believe Jack Z's draftees were more responsible for the 90-win season than any moves Melvin made.

[Sheets4theHOF]

Well Melvin was smart enough to keep Jack Z before any of Jack's draft picks showed major league production. A lot of gms clean house when they get the job and pick their own people. Doug should get credit for that.