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Why Do Some Want to Fire Melvin?


zzzmanwitz
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I don't think the Rangers would have traded Cordero straight up for 1/3 of a year of Lee.

 

Why not? they had moved Cordero out of the closer role.

He was removed as closer because he got hurt in spring training and pitched poorly in April until he got healthy. From May 1st until the trade he had a 2.87 ERA and .634 OPS against so I highly doubt they were down on him at all.
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From May 1st until the trade he had a 2.87 ERA and .634 OPS against so I highly doubt they were down on him at all.

 

I think you are absolutely wrong. Cordero had 9 BS's up until the trade, and Otsuka had clearly supplanted Cordero as their closer.

 

I don't think they thought Cordero sucked, but I think they definitely saw Cordero as being very expendable.

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Ok, I don't know how long Melvin has been in office but let's look at our team compared to what it used to be. We are good now! Sure he's made some bad trades but haven't all the GM's in the league. Especially the lower market teams who can't buy all the studs they want?

 

I feel like some Brewer fans expect that we are in the World Series ever year and that's not realistic. We can expect to be competitive each year, and that's what we've been. I feel like as soon as we started being competitive so many fans got greedy. I want this I want that, fire the head coach, fire melvin, Uecker is not a good announcer.

 

Chilax! Start supporting our guys a little more. We aren't going to be consistent if we always want to get rid of coaches, gm's and so on. Look at the MN twins. They have had consistency in their front office and on the bench and that is why they tend to be good year in and year out. I might not love Macha but let's not call for his head after every little move that doesn't go perfectly. I bet if you sat in a room with him and had a conversation about baseball he'd blow al of you out of the water. So let's not pretend we are all baseball geniuses who know what every move should have been!

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Wasn't the farm system on the mend by the time Melvin took over? Jack Z was hired by Bando (I know we all like to think it was Melvin but it wasn't)in 1999. To me, that's when the Brewers started their great turn around when they refocused on the farm system and tried to build from the ground up. Once those kids starting making the pro club we saw the numbers turn. Our starting line up only has 2, or 1/4, players that were not farm club players. So lets not just say that the club is magically better because Melvin is at the helm, what we need to do is isolate *his* free agent and trade transactions to get an idea how much he helped, or if he just lucked out and got a bunch of good players via the farm club.
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Wasn't the farm system on the mend by the time Melvin took over? Jack Z was hired by Bando (I know we all like to think it was Melvin but it wasn't)in 1999. To me, that's when the Brewers started their great turn around when they refocused on the farm system and tried to build from the ground up. Once those kids starting making the pro club we saw the numbers turn. Our starting line up only has 2, or 1/4, players that were not farm club players. So lets not just say that the club is magically better because Melvin is at the helm, what we need to do is isolate *his* free agent and trade transactions to get an idea how much he helped, or if he just lucked out and got a bunch of good players via the farm club.
Good point. I don't know who drafted who but it does seem like the farm system has continued to flurish. It was a bit weak for a year or two after we brought up all the young guys but it appears to be doing well again. I guess time will tell.

 

 

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I think it was Dean Taylor that brought in Jack Z. but the point is the same. Since Melvin kept him instead of replacing him with his own guy he deserves credit for knowing he had a good Scouting director and keeping him. He also had to make sure those great draft picks got the proper instruction along the way. Sometimes I think we gave Jack a little too much credit for how good some of those guys are and not enough to the people who actually taught them along the way. Not a single one of them got to the majors straight from the draft so there has to be more than just drafting involved.

I judge Melvin on the whole organization and how he's adjusted along the way. He used to not worry too much about defense as witnessed by Matt Stairs but he learned managers value defense so he started to look more at it. He saw a problem with our organizational approach to pitching and addressed it by implementing a system that addresses pitcher health. He found a pitching coach who was like minded and has him looking to implement that system in the entire system. Melvin does not rest on his past achievements and always looks to improve himself. That to me is his strongest trait and why i think he should stay right where he is.

 

Seems to me some of the most successful organizations are also the most stable ones. The Twins pretty much never fire people who have shown themselves to be competent. Same with the Braves and Cardinals.

There needs to be a King Thames version of the bible.
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On a side note too, it's easier to make good draft choices when you are terrible and have top picks http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif When you are better you get later picks and therefore aren't going to get the instant studs as often.
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We are good now! Sure he's made some bad trades but haven't all the GM's in the league.
I agree with everything in your post, but let me argue I don't think Melvin has made bad trades per se. Every trade involves risk and the Brewers lost on a few of Melvin's "risks". But from my perspective he's not made obvious blunders or ridiculous trades that a monkey could see was bad for the team. His moves follow a sound logic and usually reflect an effort to get the best player the team can obtain or afford to fill a need.

 

There are plenty of examples of other GMs making crazy bad trades in recent years. Trades that were jaw dropping bad when they were announced and never improved with time.

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The only trade that really seems bad is the Estrada trade. Even at the time people were very critical of the move.

Arguments can be made that it wasn't that bad either. Especially if you look at the pre-injury numbers of Estrada and Vargas. There haven't been many good trades though(other than Pods for Lee obviously), just a bunch of mediocre ones.

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I feel like some Brewer fans expect that we are in the World Series ever year and that's not realistic. We can expect to be competitive each year, and that's what we've been. I feel like as soon as we started being competitive so many fans got greedy. I want this I want that, fire the head coach, fire melvin, Uecker is not a good announcer.

I don't think fans think of being in the World Series every year is realistic but I fall into the camp of not being satisfied with barely scraping and clawing once during his tenure and then slowling slipping back to the morass of mediocrity.

 

I don't really think of the team as really competitive last year. The team wasn't the worst in the league but being below 500 and having the worst pitching staff in baseball has to put some negative light on the guy.

 

The question for me is was the one playoff appeareance it, and now we have years of 3rd place finishes as upside and winning 82 games or wil the team consistent be a contender for a playoff appearance. I mean really a contender, not just a team having a good May or something and being 2 games out in June, but playing meaningful games in September with a realistic shot.

 

As Joepepsi said, Melvin doesn't make the obvious blunders but that was sort of my point in an earlier post. He doesn't take big risks so he doesn't make huge mistakes but in trade for limiting the downside, he also limits the upside. This may be why he has been able to turn a miserable state of affairs into a .500 type team but it also makes it hard to get up to that next level of 90+ wins. The window is closing on the current crop of cheap players with Fielder nearing free agency, Hardy already shipped off, and the talk is already on the next group of guys. At some point if the team plateaus here in the 79-83 wins year in and year out I think Melvin will get dumped. He will probably catch on with another rebuilding team like KC, PITT, maybe even Houston and proably do a good job picking them off the bottom.

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He should get fired for having the worst pitching staff in the league 2 years in a row. This is basically a slow pitch softball team with two sluggers and garbage pitching. Time to find a GM that understands the value of pitching and isnt in love with every soft tossing scrub out there.
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He should get fired for having the worst pitching staff in the league 2 years in a row.

 

My, that season went by quickly.

 

Here a few days ago people were calling for Hawkins to close. Maybe that's a sign it's a good idea to play more than 10 games before panic sets in.

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Peavy, are you telling me that this staff is good? Other than Gallardo and Parra who on this staff has any upside whatsoever? Wolf is definitely competent but on the downside of his career but Davis and especially Suppan are awful. This is not me panicking. I hated this staff before the season started and I have seen nothing encouraging so far.
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Like you mentioned Yo & Parra have some upside, along with Narveson. For relievers, Coffey, Hawkins, Villy, Stetter (as a LOOGY), & even Hoffman are solid. Really your beef is with Davis & Soup, which apparently comprises the entire pitching staff.
Stearns Brewing Co.: Sustainability from farm to plate
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I agree, this is a pretty solid pitching staff that has had bad results for most of the year so far. Other than letting Macha put Suppan in the rotation, I like the pitching staff(ignoring how much we paid Hoffman, I thought we jumped on that contract way to early).

Fan is short for fanatic.

I blame Wang.

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