Why Do Some Want to Fire Melvin?

[Funketown]

I am just curious as to why anyone thinks Melvin is a decent GM? He has not had a single trade we can honestly look back on that he's hit on to put the team over the top to be a winner. In fact, the Leinbrink trade is starting to possibly look like it was a bad one especially if Inman continues to pitch like he is.

If Inman continues to pitch like this, I'm happy the Brewers got the draft pick compensation. He has not been good at all.

 

Why do I think Melvin is a decent or even good GM? Because there are probably 15-20 current major league GM's I think are worse than Melvin. Yeah, he's made some mistakes, but he's made far less than most GM's have.

[Invader3K]

If Inman continues to pitch like this, I'm happy the Brewers got the draft pick compensation. He has not been good at all.

 

Why do I think Melvin is a decent or even good GM? Because there are probably 15-20 current major league GM's I think are worse than Melvin. Yeah, he's made some mistakes, but he's made far less than most GM's have.

Inman will be one of those guys that will finally break out when he's about 27, and then people will complain. He's already 25, has been in the minors for five years, and hasn't done anything impressive. I liked the Linebrink trade at the time, but in retrospect, we probably should have just stood pat on that one, given how that season played out. I don't really blame Melvin for doing it at the time, though.

[Postseason2006]

He's already 25, has been in the minors for five years

He is? 23 = 25?

 

 

Then should why should we consider Mark Rogers any more of a prospect at this point? Why is it when we trade our players they then become trash like Nelson Cruz?

[Invader3K]

He is? 23 = 25?

My bad. Not sure where I pulled 25 from. Still, my point remains otherwise.

[TheCrew07]

As I said before, the major problem with the rotation is that they went into last season assuming/counting on Parra to fill that role, as he had shown promise in 2008.

Parra was not the main the problem in the rotation last year, the problem is that we've always lacked enough impact options. Prospects are going to fail, that's why impact depth is so important. Yo didn't pitch like an ace either and was ridden into the ground, and his starts got progressively worse on average as the year progressed. Yo didn't have a GameScore over 70 after July, and he didn't have an 80+ after Jun 5th.

 

I didn't mention the Thompson deal because the de la Rosa deal happened

after it- considering the pitching moves he made early in his Milwaukee

tenure, how did the Thompson deal keep him from acquiring pitchers like

de la Rosa and Capellan? Or are you claiming that the combination of

the two was enough to put him off of those types of moves forever?

Nothing "convenient" about it, just not following the logic or seeing

how that's easier to prove than following the shift of what the team's

developmental state went to.

Why do you keep insisting Capellan was a high impact starter? He was traded for a closer that we were jettisoning because he hadn't performed well the previous season, he was clearly improperly ranked by BA based solely on Atlanta's reputation for developing pitching, not because his stuff was so good he deserved to be ranked there. It appears that it was a horrible scouting job by the Brewers. Even if you believe Melvin just got unlucky with JDLR and Capellan, what about the rest of the pitchers? As far as the Sexson and Thopmson deals, yes I believe he doesn't target young high risk/high reward anymore. Those 2 deals were pretty much back to back trade wise, and there hasn't been a pitcher acquired of the ceiling of JDLR or Thompson since. In fact, he hasn't traded for impact prospects of any kind, Lee was probably the most talented player but way past being a prospect... Gross, Helms, Overbay, Spivy, Moeller, and Counsell were all high floor type players, Gross being the only prospect. In Texas he traded Juan Gonzalez, a 2 time MVP for Thompson, Alan Webb, Frank Catalanotto, Bill Hassleman, and Gabe Kapler... doesn't that return strike you as eerily similar to the Sexson trade?

Where was the discussion restricted to only pitchers acquired by trade?

People have been discussing Davis, Suppan, etc as part of this

discussion. I'm discussing the whole picture, not limiting it to trades.

I don't feel any need to further address what horrible value FA pitching is, like his FA signings have been better? Suppan, Wolf, Davis, and Looper? All finesse/control pitchers. I'm talking about acquiring impact talent and building a rotation that matches up with the best in baseball. Ultimately I would love to have the best rotation in the league, but I'd settle for the best rotation in the division. We only have to 2 ways to acquire impact talent, through the draft and through trades, we simply aren't able to afford elite players in FA. As far as building the best rotation in the division we aren't even close, as close as we got was 2008, and Sabathia's historic run (yes it was that good) was largely responsible for the end result. Either people are oblivious or they just don't care, but STL and CIN have better rotations now and very well positioned for the future, and the lame Cubs have 3 projectable pitchers between AA and AAA, as we as Dolis who is apparently hitting triple digits on occasion. As I've said literally hundreds of times, swapping out your 4th and 5th pitchers for a "better" pitcher doesn't mean anything in the post season. The idea should be to slot better pitchers at the top of the rotation pushing the 4/5 pitchers out of the rotation, not replace those guys with marginally better talent.

 

Because I don't really disagree with the philosophy conceptually.

Plugging veteran pitching into a rotation to supplement Gallardo and

the young offense makes sense on paper. Obviously, the results aren't

there and Suppan wasn't the right piece of the puzzle, but it's not

hard to see the rationale or logic behind the overall idea. You've made

it quite clear that you disagree with taking that approach, which is

fine obviously, but you have to at least be willing to acknowledge that

the way that you would prefer them to do this is not the one and only

valid way to approach it.

Has having 1 stud pitcher surrounded by a bunch finesse pitchers of varying quality worked? Not just in 2009, but ever for this franchise? In 2008 we looked to have Sheets/Yo, then ended up with Sabathia/Yo/Bush. I love Yo, but he's not close to Sheets in his prime yet. and I don't even need pitching that good, I'd be happy with 3 number 2 type starters and then a 3 and a 4. You can be average, or a little above average, but if that's all your pitching is, in that league average range, that's all your team can be. Once again who do we match up well against in the post season? Look at the best teams in the NL? Do we match up with any? What about the AL if we luck our way into the series by some act of god? We have the 3rd or 4th best rotation in our division and in the bottom half of MLB as a whole. Look at the playoff teams for the last 15 years in either league, then look at their league rank. The only team that made a run was STL, and once they hit the post season they were able to shorten the rotation down to 3 guys and got tremendous pitching during the playoffs. Who do we shorten our rotation to? Yo, Wolf, and... ?

 

I remember having a lengthy debate with you at the trade deadline last

year about the Brewers "window" being centered around Fielder's

departure where you claimed that the Brewers' window was much longer

than that... am I to read from your statement here that your opinion

has changed?

No, I think Fielder's departure signals the end of the first wave of talent. but I recognize that many people think the team's window ends with Fielder, which is why I framed the statement the way I did. The system might have developed 2 HOF quality talents, had them on the same team together, and Melvin would have failed to assemble enough pitching around that talent to make a serious run. I do think that every move Melvin has made since 2007 has made remaining competitive more difficult, the rental player thing really hasn't worked out so well to this point, neither in results on the field or the talent coming back in the draft. We've just never had enough impact pitching in the rotation and with Parra's demotion to the pen, Braddock's conversion to reliever, that leaves us with Rivas and Rogers in AA. While I like both of those guys quit a bit, Rogers has been very uneven to start the season. Heading down to A+, I feel much better about Peralta than I do Scarpetta. Scarpetta's averagish velocity doesn't do it for me, Fiers has similar velocity to Scarpetta but much better control, both of those guys top out in 3 range in my opinion. In A ball it's been pretty miserable season thus far as the young pitchers adjust to the level of competition. Odorizzi appears to be the real deal, I really like Heckathorn's arm, but without seeing all those young guys pitch in person I have a hard time getting excited about the rest as potential impact talent.

[MJLiverock]

The frustration is starting to build for the lack of progess this team has shown over the last couple years. It seems to me that the Melvin supporters want to point to no horrendous mistakes and provide excuses for why this guy or that guy didn't pan out as expected. Or that the relatively minor trades he has done have been successful. TheCrew07 hit a point I agree with in an early post, Melvin likes high floor guys, i.e. low risk of complete failure, but also low risk of major upside.

 

Part of Melvin's job is to be a talent evaluator. For a small market team like the Brewers to succeed the talent evaluating has to be better than average, much better, because mistakes are so costly and hard to recover from. It doesn't matter what Baseball America rates a guy, or what the consensus is on a prospect Melvin could trade for or did trade for and have it declared a success because some third party rates it equal. Melvin is paid to be better than a magazine or consensus opinion. Trading a guy while his value his high because he thinks it can go no higher or the guy is overrated is something a Brewer GM is going to have to do. I fully agree that it is very difficult but that is the job of running team. For a number of years people would joke that it was a risk taking on a Braves prospect because so many highly rated guys flamed out after they traded them and guys that seemed relatively ho hum blossomed for them. That tells me they knew their players better than a scouting service or magazine and better than other teams.

 

Melvin has been sort of a "pick a guy off the scrap heap for nothing" but some cash GM, and a few have turned out well. He hasn't been as successful trading a supposed prospect for someone else's prospect, or a vet for a prospect. The Franklin for Villanueva deal turned out pretty well. I also think the Inman/Thatcher deal for Linebrink was fine. Thatcher is a LOOGY who wouldn't bring much to the team with Stetter, Braddock, Parra, Narveson all hanging around from the left side and Inman may well have been an overvalued pitcher who doesn't end up doing much.

 

The Brewers also haven't had much success with later round draft picks either. Corey Hart is the about the only non first or second round guy that jumps out off the top of my head in AAA or the MLB and he was taken a number of years ago. The Brewers need a late rounder to blossom from out of nowhere. There may be some guys in AA or lower, but there have also been a few recent supplemental picks who have had virtually zero succes, Dykstra and Fredrickson (iirc, wild lefty I sometimes confuse with another low level pitcher)

 

Evaluating talent better than 90% of the teams is hard but as a small market team they need to in order to be a real contender. I can't keep making excuses for the team hovering at the .500 level by saying this guy or that guy didn't pan out as expected, at some point the focus will fall to Melvin for not being right on guys, it is a major part of his job to right.

[FVBrewerFan]

Melvin's biggest failure by far is not drafting and/or devloping top quality MLB pitchers- period. We can debate about the trades. He won some and lost some like every GM. But he has failed miserable in either identifying and drafting pitchers, or having people capable of developing that tlant in the minors. Maybe both, I don't know.

[jwill535]

But he has failed miserable in either identifying and drafting pitchers, or having people capable of developing that tlant in the minors. Maybe both, I don't know.

Up until last year, that was the job of Jack Z. to identify and draft talent.

[adambr2]

- Essentially trading Nelson Cruz for Kevin Mench

 

- Only one solid pitcher developed from the farm system (Gallardo) since Ben Sheets.

 

- Failing to trade high on Hardy, Prince, and others (has Melvin EVER traded anyone who's stock was overinflated at the time, other than Scott Podsednik?)

 

In addition, as much as people LOVE the CC trade, I think it set us up for failure big-time in 2009 and 2010. Why? We "went for it" when we traded for CC. I'm sure they'd love to say "going for it" meant playoffs, but they had a World Series in mind at the time, not just playoffs. Why wouldn't they? We were the second best team in the NL BEFORE the CC trade. At the time, the idea was that it was going to put us over the top, not just eek us in the playoffs to get knocked out in the 1st round. The Phillies ended up winning that year, but the Central was considered far and away the best and most competitive division, and the trade was meant to put us over the top in the central.

 

Frankly, much of the team choked down the stretch in 2008 and we were lucky CC came through for us. But by not going after a guy in trade who might have had some staying power (ex: Grienke), we were due for a regression, and Melvin tried to put the best face he could on a 2009 rotation that included Jeff Suppan as the opening day starter, but we were completely set up for disaster after Sheets and CC departed and had no MLB ready pitching prospects to help.

[Flood Pants]

- Failing to trade high on Hardy, Prince, and others (has Melvin EVER traded anyone who's stock was overinflated at the time, other than Scott Podsednik?)

Dan Kolb, Doug Davis (though he got bad return on this one), Richie

Sexson, arguably Junior Spivey, Lyle Overbay. Melvin I think has

actually done a very good job with the "buy low, sell high" philosophy.

It's hard to fault him for holding on to Hardy and Prince, because they

were playing for a potential playoff team.

 

And I will not ever fault Melvin for the CC trade. What team wouldn't trade just about anything to get to the playoffs and have a chance at the World Series? It would be nice to have LaPorta on the roster right now, but seeing the Brewers go to the playoffs was infinitely nicer. Melvin deserves credit for this move, not criticism.

[logan82]

It was questionable if Nelson Cruz would ever amount to anything and it took him one and a half years after we traded him for him to amount to anything at the MLB level including being passed through waivers at the end of spring training in 2008.

Baseball America moved Cruz up to eighth overall in their organizational rankings, but stated that despite his "well above-average raw power" and "aggressive swing, strong wrists…quick hands" and "violent bat speed," he suffered from the holes in his swing caused by his aggressive nature at the plate. Pitchers could get him with off-speed stuff, a problem that can only get worse as you progress towards the majors and smarter, more talented opposition. Cruz biggest issue besides that was the Brewers' depth chart: Geoff Jenkins and Carlos Lee were still around, and Corey Hart was ahead of him as well.

They leave out that Lee was traded. At the time of the trade it may not have look very good to trade Cruz but he was somewhat redundant.

[adambr2]

- Failing to trade high on Hardy, Prince, and others (has Melvin EVER traded anyone who's stock was overinflated at the time, other than Scott Podsednik?)

Dan Kolb, Doug Davis (though he got bad return on this one), Richie Sexson, arguably Junior Spivey, Lyle Overbay. Melvin I think has actually done a very good job with the "buy low, sell high" philosophy. It's hard to fault him for holding on to Hardy and Prince, because they were playing for a potential playoff team.

 

And I will not ever fault Melvin for the CC trade. What team wouldn't trade just about anything to get to the playoffs and have a chance at the World Series? It would be nice to have LaPorta on the roster right now, but seeing the Brewers go to the playoffs was infinitely nicer. Melvin deserves credit for this move, not criticism.

 

Davis was coming off the worst full season of his career when we traded him. Not sure how you can call that a sell high situation. Kolb yeah, even though Capellan turned out to be a bust. Sexson was yes, his best deal and the kind of thing I wanted to see us do with Prince -- though he then gave up too early on De La Rosa.

 

And as far as CC, depends on what you're looking for from your franchise. We took a step forward for 2008 but two steps back for 2009 and 2010 and we're obviously hurting because of it now. To most people that was worth getting to the playoffs even with a first round exit. To me, I'm not sure I can agree that it's worth that price without at least a World Series appearance. I guess for historical importance of the franchise it was great. But it felt like our eventual plan in '05 and '06 as our rebuilding process unfolded, was a World Series, not just finally reaching the playoffs.

[Postseason2006]

While he did sell high on Sexson, I still don't think he got enough in the deal considering Sexson was an All Star first baseman at the time coming off a great season.

[Invader3K]

While he did sell high on Sexson, I still don't think he got enough in the deal considering Sexson was an All Star first baseman at the time coming off a great season.

Yes, but you have to keep in mind the D-Backs were only getting one season of Sexson. The Brewers got multiple quality roleplayer types, which at the time we actually needed.

[logan82]

We got almost an entire infield for a year and 2 guys for more than a year for Sexson and that is before looking at the pitchers. All the guys we got were cheap and bridged the gap to our MiLB talent.

[jeffy]

 

And as far as CC, depends on what you're looking for from your franchise. We took a step forward for 2008 but two steps back for 2009 and 2010 and we're obviously hurting because of it now. To most people that was worth getting to the playoffs even with a first round exit. To me, I'm not sure I can agree that it's worth that price without at least a World Series appearance. I guess for historical importance of the franchise it was great. But it felt like our eventual plan in '05 and '06 as our rebuilding process unfolded, was a World Series, not just finally reaching the playoffs.

You get in the playoffs, you have a shot at the WS. If Sheets had stayed healthy and the team had not collapsed, and thus limped into the playoffs with a worn out Sabathia and no Sheets, the results may have been different. You can not evaluate the trade based on hindsight, you have to evaluate it based on the situation at the time it occurred. At the time it occurred it gave them two top starters, which is a great recipe for post season success. The intent of the trade was not to lose in the first round of the playoff.

Having LaPorta, et al. would not guarantee a trip to the WS either.

[NievesNoNO]

adambr2]- Essentially trading Nelson Cruz for Kevin Mench

 

- Only one solid pitcher developed from the farm system (Gallardo) since Ben Sheets.

 

- Failing to trade high on Hardy, Prince, and others (has Melvin EVER traded anyone who's stock was overinflated at the time, other than Scott Podsednik?)

 

In addition, as much as people LOVE the CC trade, I think it set us up for failure big-time in 2009 and 2010. Why? We "went for it" when we traded for CC. I'm sure they'd love to say "going for it" meant playoffs, but they had a World Series in mind at the time, not just playoffs. Why wouldn't they? We were the second best team in the NL BEFORE the CC trade. At the time, the idea was that it was going to put us over the top, not just eek us in the playoffs to get knocked out in the 1st round. The Phillies ended up winning that year, but the Central was considered far and away the best and most competitive division, and the trade was meant to put us over the top in the central.

 

Frankly, much of the team choked down the stretch in 2008 and we were lucky CC came through for us. But by not going after a guy in trade who might have had some staying power (ex: Grienke), we were due for a regression, and Melvin tried to put the best face he could on a 2009 rotation that included Jeff Suppan as the opening day starter, but we were completely set up for disaster after Sheets and CC departed and had no MLB ready pitching prospects to help.

What make you think Grienke or anyone of his caliber was available? I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around how making a trade for one of the best pitchers in baseball, for 2 unproven prospects, to put the Brewers in the play-offs qualifies as a bad move. I guess at least that means Melvin has raised the bar on what the expectations should be for the Brewers.

 

I will agree with those who say Melvin might lack some creativity with some trades and kind of hedges his bets so to speak. I still think Melvin is better than 75% of the GMs out there. I'm not one to say you have to choose somebody you'd rather have than our current GM, if you want to fire him. However, when I look around the league at some of the franchises with similar and even better resources I can't find very many that do a better job than Melvin. Yes, there are probably a few who are better, but I think the odds are greater that we hire someone who is completely incompetent and takes the franchise in a backwards direction.

 

 

[tigerbrew]

For me, I'd prefer to judge DM based on results. If the Brewers don't make postseason this year, I think DM has done poorly in his job. And if the Brewers finish behind the Cubs this year, I think DM has failed in his job. But even if the team did badly this year, I doubt DM will be fired by MA because that would mean eating the remaining 2 years in his contract.

[yfinn6]

What if the Cubs were second-to-last in the division and the Brewers were last, does being behind the Cubs make a difference at that point? It shouldn't matter where the Cubs and Brewers finish with each other to make or break Doug Melvin's job as Brewers GM.

 

Brewers fans want to believe there is this huge rivalry with the Cubs, and while there is a good one it's not to the level of the rivalry the Cubs have with the Cardinals. When the Brewers and Cubs were playing for the 1 and 2 spots in the division, yes things got a bit more heated. Being close proximity helped that, too. I just don't see the fire in the rivalry like there was in 2008 and possibly 2007.

 

At this point the Cubs are just another team in the division, who happen to be ahead of the Brewers.

[JohnBriggs12]

We got almost an entire infield for a year and 2 guys for more than a year for Sexson and that is before looking at the pitchers. All the guys we got were cheap and bridged the gap to our MiLB talent.

The 04 team won 67 games, one less than the 03 team. That's a bridge that could have been maintained with waiver claims and cheap FA signings.

 

Spivey was average for half a season and a complete bust after that. Overbay was ok but nothing special.. Counsell hit .241/.330/.315 and fanned 88 times in 2004. Moeller put up a .568 OPS in 04 and was more a negative than a positive. Capuano had a couple solid seasons in 06 and 07. De la Rosa was nearly out of options when they got him and they knew he had to develop quickly but it took him 5 more years.

 

Basically they got a couple decent years out of Overbay which they turned into Bush and a couple decent years out of Capuano. The rest was replacement level filler. It was an okay trade, but not something that I'd say made Melvin a good GM or set their team up for the future. That Sexson got hurt and missed most of 04 made it look a lot better at the time. But had they not dealt Sexson, and he stayed healthy in 04, they likely would have had a better team in 2004 and they would have got 2 draft picks that might be helping them today. Even if you judge that to be a good or very good deal, it was 6 years ago. This is a what have you done for me lately business.

[Invader3K]

You're forgetting they also flipped Spivey for Tomo Ohka who was pretty serviceable as a starter in Milwaukee for a couple years.

[tigerbrew]

What if the Cubs were second-to-last in the division and the Brewers were last, does being behind the Cubs make a difference at that point? It shouldn't matter where the Cubs and Brewers finish with each other to make or break Doug Melvin's job as Brewers GM.

If the Brewers finished last in the division, DM's job performance would be an epic failure and should no longer remain GM. I think the Cubs are much more likely to finish second than second to last. Finishing behind the Cubs matters to me personally and it'd be very demoralizing if that happens. It just tells me that we did not make any progress from last season.

[Baldkin]

You're forgetting they also flipped Spivey for Tomo Ohka who was pretty serviceable as a starter in Milwaukee for a couple years.

And he also holds the memory, for me, of spawning what might've been the greatest Uke call ever... when he flipped around and hit lefty and got two hits and 4RBI's.

[tigerbrew]

LOL, I remember that game very well, Ohka was channeling his inner Ichiro and Uke was hilarious. That game was also the first time Ohka batted left handed.

[Invader3K]

LOL, I remember that game very well, Ohka was channeling his inner Ichiro and Uke was hilarious. That game was also the first time Ohka batted left handed.

I remember one game where he had a tremendous "slash" hit that went off the wall for an RBI. I think he may have gotten a double out of that one.