Why Do Some Want to Fire Melvin?

[TheCrew07]

The fact that you say Melvin didn't bring in any prospects doesn't make it true. He did. He got Jorge De La Rosa, Zach Jackson, Jose Capellan, and Carlos Villaneuva. Capuano had all of 33 innings in Arizona before becoming a Brewers.

You must enjoy trying to spin my own lines back against me.

 

JDLR wasn't a top propsect, nor was Jackson, nor was Capellan, nor was Villy, and Cappy never had top of the rotation talent. Being in the top 10 in an organization according to BP doesn't make you a top of the rotation talent. I swear you read what you want to read. I go on at length about how Melvin built a respectable rotation but didn't acquire top of the rotation talent and that's what you come back with? The only guy on that list that had it was JDLR, and he wasn't even directly traded for he was included in Melvin's blockbuster deal for Sexson in 2003. As an aside, the BoSox dumping him as part of the Shilling deal was genious. Back on topic, If trading for one player with top of the rotation stuff between 2003 and the present, when all we had was Sheets at MLB, Yo coming up through the minors, with injured pitchers in Jones, Parra, and Rogers is actively pursuing top of the rotation talent then you are correct, Melvin went out of his way to acquire pitching..

 

Granted in the one paragraph of one post you're referring I didn't make it a point to use "top" prospect, but it should have been clear regardless the kind of talent I was attempting to discuss. Since I sincerely doubt you believe the players you mentioned were top of the rotation candidates, I'm left with the notion that you're being contrary for the sake of being contrary.

 

As for the TB discussion, I'm not sure what's even to debate or why people don't get the point. TB proved that a team cab go out and acquire top of the rotation talent if they shrewd and willing part to with some key pieces. The deals are there... they traded for Kazmir, Garza, and Jackson, while they developed Shields, Sonnanstine, Niemann, and Price. By any measure coming into last off-season they had some serious pitching depth, top of the rotation talents mixed with good mid rotation talent. I've been whining about acquiring Shields for over a year, too bad the guy I should have been trying to get was Jackson as he was actually attainable and could have probably been had for Hart + looking at the deal. Did Melvin even look into acquiring Jackson? We will never know.

 

Again, I believe Melvin is an above average GM, but he's not without his warts. I've also said numerous times that if I were to build a team I'd start with the rotation, so it shouldn't be surprising that I while I respect the fact he built a workable rotation up from nothing, I think it's fair to criticize him for not aquiring any SP significant talent in the last 5 years. Comparing the guys endaround mentioned to what TB did is a joke at best... Kazmir and Garza were as dominant as dominant gets in the minors in and Edwin Jackson was in AAA by the time he was 20 years old... when JDLR is the only projectable top of the rotation talent an organization acquires in 6 years, it shouldn't be surprising when there isn't enough quality pitching depth.

[PeaveyFury]

JDLR wasn't a top propsect, nor was Jackson, nor was Capellan

 

At the time they were traded for, they were very good ones.

[Fatter than Joey]

ATL had given up on Capellan, as he couldn't develop effective off-speed stuff.

[PeaveyFury]

ATL had given up on Capellan, as he couldn't develop effective off-speed stuff.

 

While the point about being cautious about trading for pitchers that the Braves are willing to give up, Capellan was still rated the #25 best prospect in all of MLB in 2005.

[DonMoney4Mgr]

TooLiveBrew[/b]]But in the end no major league help and no stud prospects. (Dave Bush isn't helping right now.)

 

Counting Dave Bush's injury against Melvin is absurd. Seems like you remembered at the last minute, 'Oh yeah, I guess he has traded for guys that are still helping us.'

Injuries are always held against General Managers fair or not. My point wasn't about Bush's injury, it's the fact that many players were traded over the past several years (some pretty good) and we have nothing to show for it TODAY. If you want to hang your hat on Bush as the sole contributor - go ahead.

[Ennder]

Injuries are always held against General Managers fair or not

 

They most certainly are not. If Melvin trades for Halladay and he gets hurt in his first game I doubt very few people hold it against Melvin, at least not anyone looking at things rationally.

 

Anyway you would have to look at every compensation pick we made and see what they are doing and every player we signed with any money we freed up in trades before you could make a statement like you are making. Not to mention every win the trades brought us increased team revenue which is helping the team. The only player we traded away that we are really 'missing' right now is Cruz. Bush has been better than Overbay and guys like Davis and Lee wouldn't be on the team now even if we didn't trade them.

[Invader3K]

"Injuries are always held against General Managers fair or not."

 

That's not even remotely true. I think most fans (aside from a minority of irrational people), understand athletes get hurt and there's usually not a reasonable way to predict when or if they will get injured.

[snyttri]

Injuries are always held against General Managers fair or not.

Individual injuries aren't, but over a career a team's injuries are. If the team does not get back to the playoffs over a number of year it will not matter how big of a factor injuries were in the GM's firing.

[TooLiveBrew]

Aside from the points others have made on injuries, it's incomplete to look at Melvin's trades & make some sort of statement about whether or not he's good due to them. Neglecting great waiver-wire additions & buy-low FA additions like Doug Davis, Scott Podsednik (only great bc he basically netted El Caballo), Casey McGehee, Gabe Kapler, Mike Cameron, Todd Coffey... the list goes on & on... is foolish imo.

 

So DonMoney4mgr, I guess if you want to hang your hat on the abstract concept that Melvin's trades are somehow not making this team better, and that's about all you need to analyze, then go for it.

[Ennder]

I'll just add that I think the twins way of doing it is far from perfect, they have repeatedly failed to improve their team in season where they had a chance to do something in the playoffs. They have repeatedly built teams that were the 5th or 6th best in the AL but occassionally lucked into winning one of the weaker divisions in baseball. I just do not see the Twins model as a great one.

 

Stick the Twins in the AL east and they are the Orioles. Stick them in the AL West and they are the recent mariners. Stick them in the NL Central and they are like the Astros. Stick them in the NL East and I guess they are the recent Braves. A team good enough to win the division with luck but bad enough they stand no chance at all in the playoffs.

 

Edit for numerous typos.

[joepepsi]

Good post Ennder. I think the Twins are more like the Blue Jays in the East than the Orioles. The BJ's have averaged 84 wins each of the previous 4 seasons, the Twins, 86.5.

 

The Blue Jays might have run away with the AL Central last year, had they been in that division. Life can be tough when you play 54 games a year versus the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees. The Twins played those 3 teams a total of 17 games last year. The Blue Jays went 13-1 against the White Sox and Twins.

 

But I digress.....

[monty57]

It's pretty hard to fire a GM that took us from a 56 win team in 2002 to a 90 win team in 2008.

 

I'd agree if that GM was able to sustain that 90 win mark -- or get reasonably close to it. Six years is a pretty long time to reach the 90 win mark, if you can sustain it for a few seasons, that is awesome, if you hit it once, and then end up with < 80 wins the following season, it really is nothing special.

 

Six years isn't that long when you consider that Melvin inherited a bad major league team with a terrible farm system. He first addressed the farm system, returning it to respectability, which has led us to becoming a playoff-caliber team for the past few seasons, and likely into the foreseeable future.

 

There have been some really good posts throughout this lengthy thread, and I've enjoyed reading both sides of the debate. While I'm usually the one argueing against using aggregates vs. specific cases, I think when judging a GM, you have to use everything he's done as a whole piece of work, and not get bogged down by every single move. In truth, whether he won or lost a specific trade doesn't matter nearly as much as if he has achieved his goals. In a relatively short period of time, he turned a laughing stock of a major league franchise into a winning franchise. No team makes the playoffs every year, even if they have a $200MM salary, and only one team wins the World Series in any given year, so getting upset that we haven't made it to the World Series yet is probably a bit premature.

 

TheCrew, excellent posts, and I agree with your line of thought. I called for Melvin to lock up Fielder and others several years ago, and took some knocks for it. Then, locking up players started to become a trend in MLB, but it came a season or two too late for our "first crop" of young talent. I really hope they continue to lock up our young studs (Yo, Gamel, Escobar, etc) the way they did Brauns. As far as pitching, it would seem that Melvin could have found someone to fill out the rotation better then he has, but I think that young pitchers are the most sought after commodity in baseball at this point. They can be found, but unless a GM is a complete idiot (Kazmir for Victor Zambrano), they are very expensive to acquire. Delmon Young was a #1 overall draft pick, so Garza wasn't picked up for nothing. We could probably have traded Prince or Braun for a #1 starter, but then where would our offense be? The best way to get good, young starters is to draft them and bring them up through the system, and as has been noted, this has been our organizational weakness for a while. Some of this is on Melvin, but much of it is simply bad luck of having nearly every good pitcher in the system end up with serious injuries. I think (purely a guess) that Melvin has tried unsuccessfully to land a young stud starter, but hasn't been able to land a deal. Therefore, he's picked up players that netted us additional draft picks, and he's used a lot of these high picks on starting pitchers. Sure, some of them won't pan out, but if you stockpile enough arms, some of them will make it.

 

I mentioned this in another thread, but next year's staff will consist of Yo, Parra, Bush, Suppan and someone to replace Looper. I believe Hardy will be traded for a pitcher. Whether it will happen this week (Hardy and others - maybe even Hoffman - for Buchholtz or someone else) or this offseason is up in the air, but I don't expect to see Hardy in a Brewers' uniform next year. Then we will have Bush and Suppan gone the following season, which should be about when some of our young pitchers are getting ready for a call-up.

 

Bottom line for me is that we are 1000x better now than we were when Melvin took over this franchise. We have a solid core of talent both in the majors and coming up through the system that should keep us good for a long time. Like anyone, some of Melvin's moves have turned out better than others, but as a whole, the net positive has far outweighted the negative. For what he's built from basically scratch, the thought of firing him had not entered my mind until this thread.

 

On a final note, yes, Jack Z was good for the Brewers. Melvin hired him. No one looks at a good CEO and says, "Yeah the company's extremely profitable, but it's only because his Shipping Manager was good." The person at the top gets the benefit of taking credit for good work done by those he hired, just as he takes the blame for bad work done by those he hired. It seems that other than team manager, Melvin has done a good job at hiring staff.

[Fatter than Joey]

Six years isn't that long when you consider that Melvin inherited a bad major league team with a terrible farm system

 

This isn't really true -- DM inherited a system that had Hardy, Hart, Prince, Parra, etc. already in place, our farm had started to turn the corner before DM arrived.

 

On a final note, yes, Jack Z was good for the Brewers. Melvin hired him.

 

This isn't true. Jay Zizzle was hired in 1999 as our Scouting Director -- I think JZ's hiring marks the spot in which our farm started to turn around -- not the hiring of DM in 2003.

 

Certainly DM has had a positive impact on our overall operations -- I know the timelines get a bit cloudy though from time to time.

[monty57]

I know the timelines get a bit cloudy though from time to time.

 

More like in a fog. It's especially bad, since I lived in Beloit and watched those guys play there. With your reminder, I do recall that Taylor made the decision to start re-building from the farm up, and was run out of town largely due to Hammonds. He'll go down in Brewers lore in the same breath as Bando, but he really helped start the turnaround.

 

That said, Melvin still didn't inherit a great situation, and I think he has to be given a lot of credit as to where we are today. I stand by the "person at top getting credit or blame for those under him" statement, even though he didn't initially hire Jack Z.

[TheCrew07]

I don't recall Capellan being ranked in the top 25 in all of baseball at the time of the trade, that may be true. I do recall being very disappointed in him from the start as his results and stuff didn't match his scouting reports. He was supposed to work in the upper 90s and he wasn't even close. Cody Adams is like the second coming of Capellan. I would think our scouts would have had accurate readings and their own reports on him. If Melvin thought he was top of the line talent then he was truly swindled.

 

Jackson never had top of the rotation stuff, even a lefty has to be able to hit the mid 90s on occasion to be considered top of the rotation talent. It was apparent from the start of his tenure in AAA with us that he wasn't the pitcher he had been billed as.

 

I wouldn't even care about Melvin's lack of moves for top of the rotation talent if he didn't bring up Jones and Rogers getting hurt in his interviews about pitching. He was in a position to do something about it and didn't, so it's an empty excuse to me. The root problem here is that they simply didn't have enough pitching depth in the system, so when a couple of guys got hurt there was nothing left. They hit on a ton of hitters they drafted and only 2 pitchers, and for awhile I'm not sure that anyone thought Parra would make it back to pitch for Milwaukee. Hitting is a organization position of strength, so it would have made sense to trade off some hitting for pitching knowing we didn't have much talent out there.

 

I guess it depends on what's Melvin's intentions were... if getting to the playoffs was the goal all along then he assembled enough pitching talent to get us that far. However if the World Series is the goal, then he needed to be more aggressive to acquire better pitching. He did a great job building a respectable rotation, the question though is how a team like Milwaukee takes it to the next level. Sheets and 4 average pitchers or Yo and 4 average pitchers doesn't cut it in the playoffs. I'm not sure exactly how my personal goals aligned with the organization's... I've always been looking at a WS appearance, but maybe the organization was just looking to get to the postseason... either way, now that they made the post season, the bar has been raised, so the question becomes to acquire enough pitching talent to get to the next level.

 

My biggest issue with Melvin isn't even the pitching, it's the year to year way he's managed the contracts with the majority of our players. I want him to identify who his core players are and extend them as far as possible, which extends our competitive window as far as possible. I've beat that to death in a couple of other posts in the thread though but I just wanted to be clear about my position.

[Fatter than Joey]

He'll go down in Brewers lore in the same breath as Bando, but he really helped start the turnaround.

 

This is really true -- Time has been somewhat forgiving to Taylor.

 

That said, Melvin still didn't inherit a great situation, and I think he has to be given a lot of credit as to where we are today.

 

I have no problem extending a lot of credit DM for what he has done -- I just think there are questions about whether he is the right guy for the future. If DM were fired tomorrow, I'd certainly think he was a good hire, but it was his time to move on.

[pete]

But do you get to a WS without some of the hitting? Is it worth it to go for a WS and empty the farm? Seems a lot of people think so, but I don't. Top of the rotation starters are hard to come by. Analysis that looks at it in retrospect has the luxury of seeing who performed well and who didn't.

[Thurston Fluff]

This isn't really true -- DM inherited a system that had Hardy, Hart, Prince, Parra, etc. already in place, our farm had started to turn the corner before DM arrived.

 

The thing he did since he arrived was find serviceable major league players to fill the gaps that Taylor so badly missed on. He found scrap heap guys who could play then flipped them for something more useful when in house options came up. The farm is obviously important but so is finding players outside the farm to supplement the team. The difference between Melvin and Taylor is Melvin found Podsednick Melvin found Hammond. He was so much better than Taylor that when the budget was cut by about half he still managed to put a better team on the field.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Stick the Twins in the AL east and they are the Orioles. Stick them in the AL West and they are the recent mariners. Stick them in the NL Central and they are like the Astros. Stick them in the AL East and I guess they are the recent Braves. A team good enough to win the division with luck but bad enough they stand no chance at all in the playoffs.

The Astros that made the WS in 2005?

[monty57]

My biggest issue with Melvin isn't even the pitching, it's the year to year way he's managed the contracts with the majority of our players. I want him to identify who his core players are and extend them as far as possible, which extends our competitive window as far as possible. I've beat that to death in a couple of other posts in the thread though but I just wanted to be clear about my position.

 

I agree, and have also harped on this for a long time. However, I don't think the trend of signing pre-arby guys began until recently (Braun, Longoria, Tulo). Once someone like Prince gets to arby, it's much harder to sign them long term, as

 

(A) they're now millionaires. When someone's a rookie making $400,000, three years is an awful long time for them to wait to get a $million contract. A lot can happen in that time.

(B) the contract is much more expensive. When averaging something over 6-8 years, one or two years of $400k brings the average down substantially

 

It sounds like Melvin definitely approached Hart and Prince for an extension, and probably Hardy as well, but it was probably too far along in their careers before he made the offer. I really hope he locks up Yo ASAP and approaches Gamel, Escobar and future top prospects early in their careers. I know there's added risk to doing this, but locking up the core of your talent for 7-8 years and building around that makes a lot of sense.

[joepepsi]

It begs the question, who of the current core major leaguers would you have had Melvin sign long term? He signed Braun and reportedly made an offer to Prince around the same time but was rejected. Remember he's a Boras client; Boras seldoms goes for these contracts. He signed Hall as he approached arbitration to what would have been a reasonable contract had Hall continued to perform.

 

So who should he have signed long term? Hardy? Hart? Weeks?

[monty57]

It begs the question, who of the current core major leaguers would you have had Melvin sign long term?

 

I started asking for a long-term deal on Prince after his rookie year, but that was before those type of deals were done. I would have liked to have seen them lock Hardy up as well. Even if we were planning on trading him, his trade value would be higher now if he was under control for three more years instead of one. Hart was offered, and it's looking like it was good he rejected. Weeks has been too sporadic since day 1 (probably because he was rushed to the majors), so I wouldn't have offered him a deal, and still would be hesitant to offer an extension, even though he looked very good in his limited PT this year. I don't knock Melvin for not signing these guys, as the "Braun-style" contracts were unheard of until recently (Braun was one of the first). I just hope he locks our next crop of stars up quickly.

 

Looking forward, I hope Yo is signed soon, as our biggest need now and always is SP, and he'll start getting really expensive if we wait too much longer. If Gamel and Escobar are everything they're purported to be, they should be talked to next year (assuming Hardy is gone and Escobar and Gamel are both starting). Then we've got Yo, Braun, Gamel and Escobar to build on. As other prospects rise through the system (Lawrie, A/A+ pitchers as they hit the majors), they should also be approached as necessary. Because of the "cheap" years, an 8 year deal to someone in their rookie/sophomore season is relatively inexpensive. I think Braun is 8 years, $40MM. There is risk, so these contracts should only be doled out to "can't miss" prospects. For instance, even with Parra's "stuff," and our need for SP, he's probably too much of a risk of flame-out to offer a long-term deal to. Even with "can't miss" prospects that have made the majors, you will still have some that miss, but it is mitigated somewhat in that they have at least made it to the majors, and have a season under their belt. By locking these guys up you gain payroll certainty, and get your cornerstone players for eight years instead of six. Plus, if the player is really panning out, you could always re-negotiate the contract and get him for a few more years for a little more money.

[TheCrew07]

I would have liked Hardy and Fielder signed earlier, each after their breakout season. Fielder may not have signed though I think he had good reason to given his tax issues at the time, I don't know why Hardy wouldn't have. Weeks would have been a good candidate after this season if he would have continued to hit with power all season, nothing major, but a deal buying out a year or 1 or 2 of FA wouldn't have been the end of the world. At the very least it would have increased the trade value of all players having them under control for 3+ more seasons.

 

I'm glad Hart rejected the offer, but it probably came too late as he's already into arbitration as well. Personally I'm very disappointed with Corey as I've championed him his whole career. I would have gladly welcomed him signing a long-term deal when it was offered last season, but I would have been wrong. He still has plenty of time to turn things around at the plate and in his career, but he's become replaceable.

 

edit. 1 thing I forgot to mention previously is that I think it's a quite a bit easier for a team like Milwaukee to plug position holes in FA rather than rotation slots. I don't think it would have been the end of the world to dump a player like Hart or Hardy for pitching along the way. Even Hall after his 2006 season would have been a good choice given the team was committed to Hardy at SS. Given that Fielder's tenure is winding down I'd be alright moving him for pitching as well, I'd trade him for Feliz+ in a heartbeat, but as I said in the transaction forum, I don't believe anyone else on the forum would be willing to make that deal.

[joepepsi]

While Hart is doing everything he can to show he's replaceable, he also hasn't been terrible. In his last 200 plate appearances he's hitting .271/.342/.446. That doesn't make him the All Star stud he looked like a couple years ago, but he's not a bad 6/7 hitter. Given his increased walk rate and speed, he could settle into a pretty decent 1 or 2 hitter also.

 

Last winter I thought Hardy rated with Prince and Braun as the 3 hitters they should sign long term. I wanted to trade Hart. Now I've flipflopped. I'm ready to make room for Escobar at ss in 2010.

[Hammer]

Putting together a team that gets blown out by the Nats would be a good enough reason for me...