Braun's comments: Latest: Braun Issues Statement, "Wasn't trying to call anybody out"

[RightFieldCoder]

I think the situation is bad form from both sides.

 

But I thought this is a great idea:

 

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/4290/prode.jpg

[sgtcluels]

Bad move by DM. He should be above it and not drag the media into it. He should have done it behind closed doors, I'd be mad too, but DM just made it worse.

 

DM has forced MA to chose a side, I'd go with the Franchise. You can replace GM Talent (Cept Billy Beane he's awesome), it's hard to replace "Franchise" talent.

[Mr QL]

Melvin is such a hypocrite. "Now is the time for us to be pulling together" while he bashes his star player in the media.

 

I think I'm starting to hear the revving up of the fire Doug Melvin bandwagon.

[Pudster13]

While I agree, that Melvin could/should have handled this behind closed doors, I think Braun is clearly at fault here.

 

Braun Quotes:

 

"That being said, it would be nice to make a move and it would be nice to do something to help us out for the time being. The sooner we do it, the better."

"To show everybody we're for real, we can go out there and make a move and improve our ball club. We want to head in the right direction, not the wrong direction. "

We're kind of at the point right now where it would be important for us to go out there and acquire somebody."

Bottom line:

 

NO ONE likes to be told how to do their jobs. ESPECIALLY when it is someone who is working for them.

 

What's to stop Melvin from trading Ryan Braun for a stud, young ACE pitcher tomorrow? Braun might respond, "Oh, sorry Doug, when I told you how to do your job, I didn't mean THAT."

 

As a player, you don't get to run the team. That is the GMs job. I don't care if you and all the fans agree that you are "THE FRANCHISE". I'm confident that Melvin and his staff have a plan in place. They mortaged a bit of the franchise's future last year by going out and getting CC so this team could get the 26 year old playoff monkey off their back. Players can't expect the team to do that every year, when the ultimate goal is winning a World Series, not the "Wild Card Championship". They are well aware of the "window" of playoff opportunity the Brewers currently have, however, teams can't just "make moves to make moves". The GM knows that he has to wait for the right deal to come along. Truth is, there is not one true ace pitcher available on the trade market this July. The combination of the Suppan signing and the inability of the Brewers to develop any starting pitcher through their farm not named Yovani for the past 5+ years has put us in this situation. Players (and fans) are spoiled to think that there is a magical trade fix (like CC) available to acquire each season.

 

Doug Melvin doesn't give Ryan Braun hitting tips through the media when he's in a hitting slump. Braun shouldn't do the same to Melvin.

 

Melvin has every right to be "ticked off".

 

However, with that being said, Melvin should have talked to Ryan personally, not through the media. If for no other reason, then to NOT feed into a

"Tom Haudricourt Exclusive".

 

The man gets off on that type of thing.

[owbc]

I can't believe there are people calling for Melvin's head, but if it makes everyone feel better, maybe we should fire Melvin tomorrow and bring in a new GM to tell Ryan Braun that there are no available pitchers.

[TheCrew07]

It is to early to count them as any sort of minor league depth...they have either not started playing yet or just started. The prospects we gave up had a much better chance of making the majors than 2 compensation picks.

 

What prospect we gave up last year would be helping this team right now?

 

Also, I understand your prospect love TheCrew07 and I love prospects too...I think it's important to mention in this discussion because CC wasn't just a rental...he brought back two fairly high picks.

Prospect love? What? First off, me wanting to keep prospects around has everything to do with replacing our FA losses in the next couple of seasons, not because I'm in love with certain players. In fact, my 2 favorite players in the minors will likely never play for Milwaukee. That comment is so far off the mark it's clear you don't understand what I've been saying for the last 18 months. It's not that I love prospects, it's that I view all our players in the majors and minors as assets, and I want to get the best possible return on the investment. For example a bad investment would include paying market value for FA pitching, for all of the reasons posted in 100s of other threads, a worse investment is paying for the bullpen, because now you're getting 70 innings instead of 170 for the same money. I do enjoy watching kids develop, but I'd trade them all tomorrow for a World Series championship, this team just isn't that close, nor was it last season. Sometimes I'm going to want to move multiple cheap assets (prospects) to acquire a major asset (MLB player), sometimes I'm going to want to trade 1 major asset to acquire another if I don't think we have enough of the cheap assets. I'm going to go whichever way I think represents the best total value for the Brewer organization, not the MLB team. I'm interested in sustained success, I want no part of the Marlins model.

 

2nd. You and Peavy both keep going back to draft picks, and I've clearly stated numerous times that they have no value in this scenario and why, they will not help the team quicker than the players already in the system. We can play the "what if" scenario all day every day about the talent of the picks... that's a discussion about the minor league system, not about the hole in the rotation, and it's a discussion that goes nowhere. Draft picks are irrelevant to the conversation about how to best plug a long-term hole, which is the part that people don't seem to be getting their minds around. When Gallardo went down, if Doug was going to make a move, it made sense to me to target a good pitcher with a 3 year contract and I posted that at the time.

 

Why you ask? Because we were down a top notch pitcher in Yo, this year we'd be down Sheets, and so on.... that one pitcher would have eliminated multiple problems down the road. Instead we filled the hole with Sabathia and made playoffs, yay... now we are right back where we started... down a pitcher, regardless of Bush and Parra. No big deal, we have a redundancy at SS with an All-Star and a top prospect, lets move a premium player in Hardy and get the pitcher we need.... wait, we can't do that, he's a fan favorite, Escobar's BABIP is too high and he won't be as valuable offensively, blah, blah, blah... so we sign Looper and don't really fix anything. Here we are in the race and whining about the rotation after we missed our window with our best chance to acquire meaningful talent. Now if we trade for a rental this season we'll be right back in the same boat at the end of October... My entire problem with this nighmare scenario that we're just treading water, we aren't actually improving the core of the ball club, we keep carrying over the same issues from one season to the next. I realize part of that is being a small market team, but tthe market size isn't the core issue in this case.

 

You cannot plug a hole in the rotation 1 year at a time. It's not like we had Price or Hansen waiting in AAA where we were looking at a 1 year stop gap, our best pitching prospects finished last season on the DL, in rookie ball, or A ball, and many haven't pitched over 100 innings yet in their professional career. Assuming they get pushed out 25 innings per season we're still 3ish years away from a home grown rotation, if they get their 100 innings this season.

 

Are we to make a rental player deal every year until 2011 or 2012? What about in 2011 when both Bush and Suppan are gone, do we make 3 rental player deals? The draft picks don't matter, they never have for the purposes of this discussion. We had 1 hole last year, we rolled it over to this season (Looper wasn't a significant acquisition and I argued that point all winter) and now we have 2 holes this year. We'll probably 2 holes next year and 3 holes in 2011. Until we start plugging a some quality solutions with longevity into the rotation, the problem continues to exist, putting a band aid on it doesn't stop the bleeding or fix the root issue.

 

Finally, and I'm probably into the 100s with this comment, but I'll say it again, I believe in building a team from the starting pitching up. You do what you have to do establish the best rotation in the division, develop as many bats as you can and go FA with rest, do the best you can with relief. For example, it doesn't make sense to me to pay Suppans fair market value to be the highest paid player on the team, but be in the bottom 1/2 to bottom 1/3 of the talent on the 24 man roster. A team like Milwaukee has to pay it's best players the most money, we can't afford to frivilously spend on mediocrity, our plan has to be better than. It's much easier to get your money's worth out of signing a FA position player than it is a FA pitcher. I hate to keep pointing to Tampa, but they really are the best example of what I'm trying to say, and finally a baseball GM's thinking aligns with my own. They've aggressively gone after pitching to build a great rotation, now that they have some pitching depth, they are dealing pitching to fill holes on their roster. It's much easier to trade 1 pitcher for 3 bats than it is to trade 3 bats for a pitcher, when you have pitching you're always dealing from a position of strength.

 

If Melvin keeps doing what he's done then it's going to be a long couple of years, or they are going to rush kids and burn them out before their time. Developing pitch takes patience, the same way I don't want to risk Yo's arm pushing him after pitching so few innings last season, I don't want to see Braddock, Peralta, Rogers, Scarpetta... any of the young kids pushed. It doesn't do any good to get those arms to Milwaukee only to have them Neugy out on us once they get here because they were pushed too hard. We need them to be healthy and effective, not only for their careers, but for the team because there is no easier to way to acquire pitching than to develop it yourself. My biggest fear is that Melvin will keep doing the FA thing with stop gaps so the team never really gets over the hump and that there will always be that temptation to push the young pitchers faster than they should.

[TooLiveBrew]

You cannot plug a hole in the rotation 1 year at a time.

 

To be fair, the Brewers reportedly made a contract offer over $100M to Sabathia. It's not like they didn't try to keep him around longer than half of a season.

 

 

My biggest fear is that Melvin will keep doing the FA thing with stop gaps so the team never really gets over the hump and that there will always be that temptation to push the young pitchers faster than they should.

 

And the SP the Brewers were rumored to be looking at this year are/were Peavy -- obv. not a rental -- & Bedard. Clearly Bedard is/was a fallback option, and a rental too... but part of the appeal is not having to give up an elite prospect price... and still getting a likely Type A FA out of the deal. I don't think it's reasonable to start discussing Melvin like all he goes out to do in deals is get rental players & turn them into draft picks.

[TheCrew07]

This just keeps getting worse.

 

People keep applauding Braun for running his mouth and for his antics, DM was right about 2 things, this isn't the first time Braun has said something, and as other's have pointed out I've never heard a pitcher in the organization say anything about the offense, so his comment about the 1-0 and 2-1 was spot on. I'm not into Ryan's flamboyance, it just rubs me the wrong way... it started for me with the home run antics, escalated when he was laying down in the field because he finally made a nice defensive play, then the wining about the shadows, and now this.

 

Yes the team needs pitching, no one has beat that drum louder than I, but realistically if they do anything with the bats on Friday the Brewers leave Chicago with a split, is he still saying anything then?

 

Others have said Braun signed a contract so he has every right to say whatever he wants, I thought TLB nailed that point, by guaranteeing the contract the risk is all with the Brewers. Braun didn't sign a home town discount contract, he gave up some money on the back end to get himself the guaranteed money on the front end. It was a reasonable deal for both sides... That being said, just because Ryan the best player on the team and signed a deal that secured his financial future doesn't entitle him to say whatever he wants about the stadium, the general manager, or the team... I'd say he should carry himself with some class, but he's just not going to.

 

I have no doubt that TH's crappy reporting is partly to blame here, McCalvey's article was much better written as usual, and actually provided some context around the more inflammatory comments made by Braun, the tone was much different between the 2 articles. Article content aside, I don't mind Melvin stomping on Braun at all, he could stand to be humbled a little bit. I just don't think it's in the best interests of the organization to have this going on in public and I have no interest in seeing this deteriorate into another Farve/Thompson debacle.

[SeriesFinale]

Melvin is such a hypocrite. "Now is the time for us to be pulling together" while he bashes his star player in the media.

 

I think I'm starting to hear the revving up of the fire Doug Melvin bandwagon.

So now people think Melvin should be fired for, in part, defending himself against comments made in the press by said star player. Wow.

 

One day the mob will turn on Braun, too.

[JUNT4twan]

It seems like this was just the straw that broke the camel's back for DM. Braun loves to talk to the media. Many times, it's about his problem with something. NOBODY likes a complainer, whether it's the "franchise player" or not.

 

Think about your workplace. Have you ever had a young, talented co-worker/subordinate that is everything you ask, except that he/she complains more than normal? I'm sure I'm not alone with having this problem. It gets to the point where, presenting a legit complaint/problem or not, you start hoping the person would stop being such a petty whistleblower and shut up. In my case, this person was very good at what she did, and had an unbelievable work ethic, but people started disliking her because of her abnormal complaining, which unintentionally created a bad work environment.

 

It doesn't matter what Braun's intentions were, they are going to be taken by every person differently. Some won't have a problem, but some will without a doubt be taken aback by it. DM probably just got sick of it, decided not to take the "internal route", and showed Braun that he too can play the media game. Sometimes you have to stick it to the good ones to get your point across, because whether an internal road with Braun has been taken with a past issue or not, Ryan hasn't reigned in his "good-intentioned honesty" yet, which could be creating some tension in the clubhouse.

[TheCrew07]

I don't think it's reasonable to start discussing Melvin like all he goes out to do in deals is get rental players & turn them into draft picks.

That's all he's done to this point, and that appears to be most likely scenario again this season. The Peavy rumor is just that... until we get a long-term solution this issue isn't going to go away. Also Peavy would have created as many problems as he solved, he was a health risk, still is a health risk, and his contract is an albatros if that option year needs to be gauranteed.

[bucks2281]

I see how the comments about the shadows could be perceived as "whining", but there's certainly merit if it's a "safety issue", as Braun alluded to. I have no idea if Braun was exaggerating or, if he was, to what extent, but it's fair to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[JUNT4twan]

The problem is that, over the years, the majority of the players in all sports that talk to the media a lot about truthful, but unnecessary things end up being cancerous to the clubs that they play on.

[logan82]

I don't think it's reasonable to start discussing Melvin like all he goes out to do in deals is get rental players & turn them into draft picks.

That's all he's done to this point, and that appears to be most likely scenario again this season.

Melvin has certainly focused on making the MLB club better with trades instead of stockpiling minor league talent, but let's be fair here. We have had very linted talent on the MLB club to trade for prospects.

[bucksbeat]

It's my opinion that the organization always has to be above the player. I don't agree with your General Manager going out and making ANY negative comment about any member of your club, retaliatory or not. Being that Doug Melvin is on the business end of things he should have called Ryan into his office and had a talk with him, not bash his bashing to the media. If Melvin were asked about it, all he should have said was that it was being dealt with internally.

 

Braun's comments weren't too harsh for a GM to shrug off. Sorry but Braun said what every fan wanted to say.

[southpaw121505]

I can't believe there are people calling for Melvin's head, but if it makes everyone feel better, maybe we should fire Melvin tomorrow and bring in a new GM to tell Ryan Braun that there are no available pitchers.

Amen. Yeah, let's fire DM cause he won't trade Gamel for Vasquez to make his leftfielder happy. People will ALWAYS complain. If Melvin makes a trade and its lopsided the same people that want the pitching help now will be complaining in a few years as the stud prospects we trade away are good major leaguers. Six years of Gamel/Escobar for 1.5 of Vasquez? Gamel AND Escobar as a starting point for Haren? Everyone wants another starter or two but if those are the asking prices right now then I can't say I blame Doug for "sitting on his hands."

[shelmark]

bucksbeat,

 

The fans can say it, a teammate can and should not. It serves no purpose and shows Braun's arrogance, as if we needed another example.

[TooLiveBrew]

... all [Melvin's] done to this point [is turn rental players into draft picks], and that appears to be most likely scenario again this season. The Peavy rumor is just that... until we get a long-term solution this issue isn't going to go away. Also Peavy would have created as many problems as he solved, he was a health risk, still is a health risk, and his contract is an albatros if that option year needs to be gauranteed.

I feel that calling every deal Melvin has swung a rental isn't being fair. Additionally, brushing off the Peavy rumors as "just [rumors]"does a discredit to Melvin & the way that situation actually unfolded. Of course I will never know if that deal actually was on the brink, but the Pads & Brewers matched up pretty darn well. While I will acknowledge that Peavy has health concerns (as does any pitcher), I guess I don't have as much doubt in the value he'd bring for the Crew -- at worst an equal of Gallardo.

 

I guess one reason I side with Melvin on this spat is that Braun called out his own teammates, and basically the entire scouting department of the Brewers. Aside from his criticism that the team hasn't made a move soon enough, there's a note in the JSOnline article about Braun claiming the Brewers didn't have a scouting report on a recent rookie SP. It seems that Melvin tends to not mind players jawing & acting imperfectly, but treading on his scouting department might be sort of sacred ground.

[LouisEly]

Didn't Braun use a small sample only referring to the Cubs series? I didn't hear him saying anything after Burns gave a quality start against New York.

 

1) Braun was specifically referring to the Cubs series - TH and others who didn't read the comments closely are the ones who took it out of context.

 

B) Even if he wasn't referring to just the Cubs series, it wasn't just Burns and McClung that have pitched poorly. Remember, before they had those two they had a month of abysmal Parra starts which led to his demotion and a month of Bush's abysmal starts because he wasn't properly diagnosed with his injury, which is a topic for another thread. If you take a look at what Burns and McClung have done in combination with what Parra and Bush did the last month they pitched you end up with 40% of a team's starts being pretty much garbage for the last six weeks. Bush in his last six starts went from a 3.74 ERA to 5.67; Parra in his last five went from 4.57 to 7.52. To rise that high that quickly is way worse than replacement level, and must have been very frustrating to play through.

 

3) So to an extent, and to paraphrase a line Sam Kinnison used to say in his schtick, "I don't support (it), but I understand it." Technically, given that "but" is an eraser word, my line should be, "I understand it, but I don't support it." Both Braun and Melvin were wrong. Meet in private, discuss in private, move on.

 

4) For those of you who think that Jack Z. is the one mostly responsible for the success of the team, I say he is just as much a part of the problem as he has been the solution. Why? Here is a list of pitchers currently on the Brewers that he drafted:

 

Yo Gallardo

Mitch Stetter

 

Manny Parra, while drafted, has been more of the problem than the solution this year. So for everything that Jack Z. has given them for bats, he has not given them for arms. For as much as Melvin was criticized for having a poor bullpen the last few years, he is the one responsible for bringing in Hoffman, DiFelice, Smith, and Coffey, not to mention Suppan and Looper. He's had to, because Jack Z. has given him little to work with in terms of arms. You can even take that a step further, and if you look at Nashville the list of pitchers drafted by Jack Z. include Parra, Dillard, and Dave Johnson. So not only has Melvin had to go outside of the organization to get 11 of the 13 pitchers on the major league squad, but he's had to get all but three of the pitchers in Nashville. Jack Z. can find bats alright, but as far as arms... not so much.

[bucksbeat]

bucksbeat,

 

The fans can say it, a teammate can and should not. It serves no purpose and shows Braun's arrogance, as if we needed another example.

Regardless of whether it was right or wrong, I'm dumbfounded as to how Braun's comments show arrogance. It's taking the definition of arrogance, in itself, out of context.

[diener34]

I haven't read every post in this thread, but from almost every post I get the feeling of Brett Favre vs. Ted Thompson. Splitting up the fanbase. I'm not concerned about this internally, but I never like it when fans start siding with only one guy. This thread has already talked about a Braun trade and Melvin being fired. They're just words. I'm sure Melvin and Braun will talk it out, as both have their intentions in the right place.

[craigharmann]

Where's Mark A in all of this? If I'm him, I'm pulling Doug and Braun in a room, sit them down and the first words out of my mouth are "This ends NOW. No more quotes in the media. It gets handled in house." If Braun feels the way he feels, fine. He's entitled to it, but be a professional. Handle it behind the scenes, behind closed doors. When you go to the media, you will get a reputation of being a whiny crybaby. Get your butt in the batting cages, do extra work in the field, and take the attitude of, "if we can't win with pitching, then we've got to win with hitting". Rally the other players on the team, get on them and fire them up to do their job. In essence, oh, BE A LEADER. And to DM, how childish do you look in replying in the media? That was the dumbest thing to do. Say those things behind closed doors. Both look absolutely stupid in my opinion.

[BrewCrewForever]

I don't like that Melvin said these comments publicly. What if this makes Ryan not want to stay here and leave early via trade or not want to re-sign when he current deal is up? Maybe I'm overreacting but that would be a terrible thing.

 

Hopefully they can work it out together and get back on the same page. I love Braun and I love Melvin so hopefully they can love each other again. Quit this bickering in the media.

[brewtank34]

We have Braun for another 6 years I believe. By the time his contract is up with us, I doubt we'll be able to pay him what he's worth. I applaud DM for saying this...maybe Braun can start realizing his place in his organization.

[PeaveyFury]

You and Peavy both keep going back to draft picks, and I've clearly stated numerous times that they have no value in this scenario

 

But I think that that's completely untrue. You keep saying the Brewers are emptying their system in trades and act like they're not getting anything back in return. Well, regardless of the fact that the picks do set the timetable for the prospects back, they're still adding talent back to the system. What if both of the picks from the Sabathia deal turn out to be as good or better prospects than Brantley and LaPorta? While certainly no guarantee, it is quite possible. And again, if you think the Brewers' window is in 2013-2014 as you have repeatedly said, you should be on board with stocking up on talent that would potentially be ready to help in that time frame like these draftees would be.