Why Do Some Want to Fire Melvin?

[sgtcluels]

For my 2000th post all I'll say is.. look at what Melvin left us for 2009 and 2010.

 

Guess I should get http://www.firedougmelvin.com up and running.

[UeckerAddict]

For my 2000th post, all I'll say is.. I've been to 2 playoff games, watched a stadium's attendance go from depleted to full, seen more .500 or better seasons the last 4 years than in the previous 15 combined, gotten to witness the arrival of one of the best all around hitters (Braun) and the best power hitter (Fielder) in team history, watched the days of the Brewers getting one obligatory all-star selection come to the end, witnessed consistent playoff contention after the all-star break, and it is all happening in a market that no one wants to play in.

 

I want to be clear: I am frustrated with what is going on with the Crew at the moment. However, the "what have you done for me lately" mentality is not where my thought lie. We've hit a bump in the road, he is aware of it, and I'm willing to watch how he goes about dealing with it. I have an extreme fear that a new G.M always has the potential of leading a small market franchise back into the Bando doldrums. I don't think Melvin will do that.

[TooLiveBrew]

For my 2000th post all I'll say is.. look at what Melvin left us for 2009 and 2010.

 

Guess I should get http://www.firedougmelvin.com up and running.

Unbelievable. UeckerAddict hit the nail on the head.

 

The funny part to me is that people basically want Melvin to burn the organizational depth so they can feel better for the next two months, and then just go back to complaining for the next 2 or 3 seasons.

[sgtcluels]

I need you to explain what you mean TLB. I never once said we should burn whatever minor league depth we have to acquire the likes of Halladay/Bedard (pre-DL). I've been anti that.

 

Melvin has backed us into a pretty crappy situation with two players collectively (BEfore tonight) with a -.1 WAR. Instead of spending two league mins we are spending 20million... or a little under 25% of our payroll.

[fallingleaves]

Melvin does not deserved to be fired, pure and simple. Yes there have been some poor moves made under his tenure, resigning Bill Hall (a move applauded at the time), Riske (a true risk), and of course Suppan (Mark A's splash signing). We all knew 2009 would be a rough season and the team was particularly screwed of compensation for both CC and Sheets.

 

I will say this, however, I wish Seattle would have taken away Melvin instead of Jack Z.

[TooLiveBrew]

I need you to explain what you mean TLB. I never once said we should burn whatever minor league depth we have to acquire the likes of Halladay/Bedard (pre-DL). I've been anti that.

 

Melvin has backed us into a pretty crappy situation with two players collectively (BEfore tonight) with a -.1 WAR. Instead of spending two league mins we are spending 20million... or a little under 25% of our payroll.

Then I guess I need you to explain what "look at what Melvin left us with for 2009 & 2010." I took that to mean he's done a poor job constructing the 2009 team & has no real plans to make the team better heading into 2010.

[Never Outhustled]

Doug Melvin has absolutely no ability to identify pitching, unless its someone like CC, where its obvious to everyone that he's awesome. We've had a grand total of 4 quality starters pitchers in Melvins entire tenure here. 2 came up through the system (Sheets, Gallardo), 1 was Davis, a lucky waiver pickup who Melvin then gave away for nothing, and CC.

 

I don't know how I should have an once of confidence that Melvin can build a pitching staff. He's been here 7 years and this is what he has built so far. All of the pitching prospects he's aquired were total flops (Cappellan, J DLR, Zack Jackson), All his FA signings are flops. His big trade aquisition, Dave Bush, has an ERA over 5 for the 2nd time in 3 years.

 

Melvin needs to trade for pitching, but unless its for a superstar, I have no confidence he will be able to identify someone that is actually good. In all likelyhood, based on his history, Melvin will aquire a soft tossing pitcher who had a good ERA season that was built on a lucky BAPIP and great defense behind him. The pitcher will come here, regress to his means, and we'll have nothing.

[CWSOmaha]

X ellence...

I totally agree!!!

[Ennder]

If you are going to call Doug Davis a quality pitcher I'd think you have to call Capuano and Bush quality pitchers as well.

[Baldkin]

Capuano, Ohka, Wise, Turnbow, Kolb, Cordero, Davis, Shouse, Coffee, Torres

[Ennder]

To take it a step further I don't think you can really blame the rotation just on Melvin. We have had problems keeping prospects healthy more than anything and just haven't developed many pitchers. People tend to give Melvin none of the credit for drafting our hitters and then blame him for the lack of pitching prospects. We do not have the type of team that can buy a rotation so when you have Capuano and Sheets go down over the years and then Bush this year and fail to bring many pitchers up through the minors it really hurts. Some of that is Melvin's fault but a lot of it isn't.

[TheCrew07]

Capuano, Ohka, Wise, Turnbow, Kolb, Cordero, Davis, Shouse, Coffee, Torres

X was talking about top of the rotation starting pitchers... as was I. He hasn't acquired a single long-term top of the rotation starter through a Trade or Free Agency since he's been here. The closest he's came was JDLR all the way back in 2003 who couldn't throw strikes until last season for the Rockies and may have finally salvaged his career. Good for him, bad for us.

[jwill535]

Capuano, Ohka, Wise, Turnbow, Kolb, Cordero, Davis, Shouse, Coffee, Torres

X was talking about top of the rotation starting pitchers... as was I. He hasn't acquired a single long-term top of the rotation starter through a Trade or Free Agency since he's been here. The closest he's came was JDLR all the way back in 2003 who couldn't throw strikes until last season for the Rockies and may have finally salvaged his career. Good for him, bad for us.

The same could be said for about 15-20 other GMs. #1 starters are as rare as **insert your own joke here**

[TheCrew07]

To take it a step further I don't think you can really blame the rotation just on Melvin. We have had problems keeping prospects healthy more than anything and just haven't developed many pitchers. People tend to give Melvin none of the credit for drafting our hitters and then blame him for the lack of pitching prospects. We do not have the type of team that can buy a rotation so when you have Capuano and Sheets go down over the years and then Bush this year and fail to bring many pitchers up through the minors it really hurts. Some of that is Melvin's fault but a lot of it isn't.

I've taken Z to task numerous times for the lack of pitching depth in the organization but Melvin was ultimately in a position to fix that issue. The team had hit on enough hitters that he had options available to acquire a starter... but looking at his deals because he takes back MLB talent it limits the upside he's going to get in prospects. For example, when Melvin traded Overbay to Toronto he plucked Bush and Jackson but left Marcum and McGowan in the system who had terrific seasons in the minors, both had a taste in the majors already, and Marcum started 14 games for Toronto in 2006.

 

Injuries aside, I would have settled for one of Marcum or McGowan over Gross, Jackson, and Bush. I have nothing against Bush, I especially like his demeanor on the mound, but he's not an elite talent. If either still would have gotten injured down the stretch last season we wouldn't have had them anyway for this season, but we wouldn't have to make a move to be in better shape for next season either. Maybe one of them is on the mound for that fateful game at Wrigley instead of Yo, then Yo doesn't hurt... I don't have an accurate way to predict what the domino effect would have been other to point out that there have been opportunities to acquire a stud young pitcher and he's passed them bye.

 

edit. The difference here is probably that people tend to assume he got "best" deal he could when making trades... I don't think that's necessarily true. He got the best deal for MLB talent that he could, but he bypassed superior talent to get MLB pieces. The more I think about the Overbay trade the last year or so, the more I dislike it. I would have loved our rotation coming into last season with Sheets, Marcum, Yo, and Parra... and I'd feel pretty good about 2010 having Marcum, Yo, and Parra.

[joepepsi]

I don't know....signing Sheets to a long term contract is the same as signing any free agent to me. Cappy was a solid No.2 starter. Davis had a 3.92ERA in 3+ seasons with the Crew. Yo has been wonderful. Parra still shows potential. I can't think of another small market team who has swung as good a deal as Doug did for CC.

 

It's expensive and risky to build a pitching staff through trades and free agency. They need to be better at drafting pitchers, something I believe they addressed this past draft.

[sgtcluels]

Fair enough. Melvin really hasn't done much to improve our ballclub this year. With the fact that (as stated above) we have two massive contracts with little to no real value eating up 24% of our payroll, we also gave away 1 million to Julio (who looked like crap in ST, and we finally dropped). 2010, we are possed for much of the same until we free up 24% of our roster. We have severally over paid for pitching, and it's not so much we rolled 'them bones and gambled for a win, we rolled them bones for 5 years on a gamble that stats that indicate a regression some how break from tendency and improve.

 

Add into it how he divorced ourselves from one of the best pitchers in baseball (Sheets when healthy.. yeah yeah, still doesn't excuse the fact that the bridge is sooo burned by Melvin). He was extremely reluctant to fire Yost, now brings in Macha who appears to be perhaps equally Yostian, he then engages Deputy Braun in the media (He should rise above and not make the situation worse). This clubs success was based on drafting, we had our window for the past 3 years and Melvin was unable to fill the gaping holes in our lineup to compliment our farm talent. That window is closing in 2010 when we'll see massive salary increases for these players, so we'll trade them away. Our rise to contender wasn't due to brilliant Beane-esk moves, it has to do with our farm club talent becoming just that talent.

 

I'm not saying Melvin wasn't the person for the job before, but like Yost, he was fine getting us to a point, but now we needed to take a step further. And Melvin hasn't delivered. (Please no more CC stuff)

[lcbj68c]

The funny part to me is that people basically want Melvin to burn the organizational depth so they can feel better for the next two months, and then just go back to complaining for the next 2 or 3 seasons. ~~ TLB

 

You're not listening to what we are saying. It's not about 2009 (the next two months) anymore. It's about 2010, 2011, 2012...his proven track record of failing to acquire any pitching. Most people were pretty adament that the rotation was not going to give the Brewers a chance in 2009 and rightly so. I can give Melvin a pass on that. Being below .500 is going to suck. But that happens once in a while, if you have a mini-rebuilding period. The problem is, the track record shows that his ideals of importance aren't establishing a rotation good enough to sustain a season of great success. He went out and got C.C. for half a season, that's great. But how about establishing a rotation that can compete from April through September without having to go hunting and overpay in July. It's not about "feeling good for the next two months"...it's about being terrified to think where this rotation and therefore team is going to be in 2010...2011...if he doesn't change the way he approaches free agency, more specifically how he acquires starting pitching.

[monty57]

Our rise to contender wasn't due to brilliant Beane-esk moves

 

Such as drafting three pitchers that amazingly never got hurt and all managed to acheive their full potential for the years they were with Oakland, and then filling the roster with players who shot steroids to become elite players (Giambi, Tejada). I say that half jokingly, as I understand that Beane is a good GM, but he has got lucky at some points, and has made bad moves just like any GM. The fact that his MVP players (and likely others) who played a big part in his winning seasons were steroid users probably didn't hurt his teams' performance.

 

You're not listening to what we are saying. It's not about 2009 (the next two months) anymore. It's about 2010, 2011, 2012...his proven track record of failing to acquire any pitching.

 

Good starting pitchers, whether acquired through FA (see CC & Lowe's recent contracts) or trade are the most expensive commodities on the market right now. Going back to Beane, think Moneyball... it's about valuation, stockpile what's cheap and trade it away when it becomes expensive. Don't trade cheap commodities for expensive ones. In today's market, apparently a very good (if not superstar) shortstop (JJ Hardy) won't net an unproven AAA pitcher (Buchholtz). It looks to me like Melvin has tried to get the pitching we all want, but it's too expensive, so he's going at it another way. He's signing players that will net him draft picks, and he's using a large number of those draft picks to stockpile pitching. Next year, if we don't firesale this season, we could have three first round picks (ours, one for Hoffman, one for Cameron if they are Type A), and three sandwich picks (Hoffman, Cameron, Lopez). That should help keep young pitchers coming into the system. We have next year to worry about, when our rotation will consist of Yo, Bush, Parra, Suppan and someone to replace Looper. As I've said, I think Hardy will be traded for this pitcher. We then should have a good crop of yong pitchers who are now in the low minors, but should be getting about ready to step in when Suppan and Bush are gone the following year. After that, we could have a surplus of pitchers, which would be a great luxury, similar to where Tampa Bay is sitting right now. We should also have position talent to go along with these pitchers, as all of our current roster except Fielder (and Braun, who's signed) seem to have a replacement in waiting in the minor leagues.

 

I'm with you that it's not about this year. We came in with an adequate rotation, but no depth, and were at the top of the division until Bush got hurt and Parra forgot how to throw strikes, at which point we didn't have anyone to replace them. Depth at SP was our obvious weakness coming into the season. Bush is out for at least a few more weeks, the Cubs are playing like they were expected to, and St. Louis is selling the farm to win this year, so I think it's about time to start looking to the future, and I would not be at all disappointed if Melvin started selling right now. Hoffman and Cameron could net a decent return. If JJ won't get Buchholz by himself, maybe JJ & Hoffman could get Buchholz and a decent minor leaguer. I would guess that we probably won't sell, which in my mind is a small knock against Melvin, but we are still technically in contention, so I wouldn't blame him too much. As far as the future, I'm not as worried as some of you. We need to fill one hole in the rotation next year, and unless a LOT of young pitchers completely flame out, or we do something stupid like trading away all of our talent in a futile attempt to win this season, we have the talent to be a playoff contender for a long time.

 

The team that has been a playoff contender for the last few years was mostly built by Melvin and his staff, and the solid minor league rosters that will keep us in playoff contention for the foreseeable future were built by Melvin and his staff. He's done a good job.

[Ennder]

The more I think about the Overbay trade the last year or so, the more I dislike it. I would have loved our rotation coming into last season with Sheets, Marcum, Yo, and Parra.

 

The Jays would have laughed at us if we asked for Marcum for Overbay though. We got a good deal by getting Bush as it is, there is no way we get their better prospects for a mediocre 1B.

 

X was talking about top of the rotation starting pitchers

 

Then he shouldn't include Doug Davis. Bush and Capuano are as good or better than Davis is. Bush has the same career ERA at a younger age and Capuano's was better. Both had better peripherals than him going into this year at least.

 

It really comes down to the Suppan debacle for me as well as the complete lack of prospects in AAA atm. If we had signed say Ted Lilly instead of Suppan I wouldn't be bothered by our rotation going into the season the past 3 years.

 

In 2007 we would have gone into the year with Sheets, Capuano, Lilly, Bush and Vargas with Gallardo and Villanueva for depth.

In 2008 we would have had Sheets, Gallardo, Lilly, Bush, Parra with basically no depth

In 2009 we would have had Gallardo, Lilly, Bush, Looper, Parra with basically no depth.

 

The biggest issue with those 2008/2009 rotations is just no depth down at AAA to replace injuries. The fact we spent so much cash on a #4/#5 starter means we don't have a #2/#3 and the fact we haven't brought up any good young prospects other than Gallardo means we have been lacking a #1/#2. Injuries have taken a significant toll on each of those rotations as well and the lack of depth has been a big issue. You can't really have depth at the major league level for pitching, it comes from prospects in the minors.

[MJLiverock]

I don't see this team in contention anymore for 2009. Their trend is down while the competiton is heading up. While the Brewers were playing well early in the year and the Cubs/Cards struggled the team wasn't able to build a cushion and as the Cubs start getting players back from injury, Cardinals trade for players and get Lohse back they have improved. Milwaukee has seen some of their pitchers fall back to earth and others have gotten hurt. I would not be surprised to see the Brewers buried by year end and end up 10+ games out of the division lead.

 

The problem is with no changes they will be in the exact same boat next year, not contending this year and not contending next year. The previous posts about the Beane comparisons with the pitching and "luck" of having them pan out made me think about what creeps into my mind about Melvin. Beane wasn't afraid to deal Mulder for Haren+. As someone said, Hardy won't net Bucholz now but maybe he would have earlier, not saying that Hardy should have been traded last year but more that Melvin seems very very risk averse and only wants to make deals that are fairly sure things or so cheap/ low level that they don't matter. Getting CC was a pretty obvious move, signing a bunch of scrap heap guys like Kendall, Julio, McGehee, Cat, Kapler, Mota, don't carry a lot of risk. He did step out and grab Gagne for a year as a big risk given the money for that year and Cameron has been an OK move. Cameron is worth his pay, the question is was there a cheaper option for CF where the drop off there would be offset by using the money on better pitching but that is just a hindsight question not necessarily a bad move but not necessarily the right one either.

 

I think my main criticism of Melvin is he likes to make little moves that sort of shuffle the deck chairs around but doesn't address the glaring problems of pitching. Almost as if the focus is now so short term that the next couple years are too far out. I think the team should be sellers at this point and look to make a bigger deal rather than make a bunch of little deals for guys with low ceilings. The team doesn't need a bunch of future 4th or 5th starters because they are cheap to trade for but more of a package for future 1 or 2 starters.

 

At this point I would rather watch Escobar and Gamel play and see whomever roam CF or close than watch them hang on for 80 wins and be no better off for next year.

[Ennder]

To be fair Beane knows that his home park makes pitchers look a lot better than they are and the A's have always focused on defense which makes them look even better. He also has shown a pattern of abusing his pitchers and then trading them before they break down. Beane is leveraging his park/division into good trades most of the time, we don't exactly have that luxury.

[TooLiveBrew]

It's not about "feeling good for the next two months"...it's about being terrified to think where this rotation and therefore team is going to be in 2010...2011...if he doesn't change the way he approaches free agency, more specifically how he acquires starting pitching.

 

I am definitely listening to what folks have been saying, but I just don't share the cloudy outlook. The Brewers will be able to add the SPing that's needed this offseason by moving Hardy/Escobar/many other players.

[lcbj68c]

Cameron is worth his pay, the question is was there a cheaper option for CF where the drop off there would be offset by using the money on better pitching but that is just a hindsight question not necessarily a bad move but not necessarily the right one either. ~~MJLIVEROCK

 

Ding, Ding, Ding!! But there just was nobody available is the same argument you'll here concerning #1 or #2 type pitchers. That, or it's too cold or...free agents don't come to Milwaukee....or point to one rumoured argument that C.C. was offered 100M, but he turned it down. People argue that another GM will take us back into the days of pre-Melvin. Well, what exactly is going to be the arguments when it's 2012, the crop of minor league talent doesn't blossom as expected, the wave of great hitters (minus Braun) are too expensive to keep and our window is gone. Without any change in attitude towards pitching, this team wins around 72 games in 2009, 2010, 2011 and we'll be right back to the pre-Melvin days. It's been great what's he's done, but it's time for him to adapt and change to the ecomony of the Brewers today (85M) and change in the way other GM's are building successful ballclubs if he wants to get over the top. If the goal is to be status-quo, just good enough for 75 win team and hope to god it continues to draw 2.75M fans, then Melvin is your man.

[lcbj68c]

Then I just don't share the cloudy outlook. The Brewers will be able to add the SPing that's needed this offseason by moving Hardy/Escobar/many other players.

:bangs head on desk: Melvin doesn't do that!!!! In the off-season, Melvin trades or signs #4 or #5 type starters, or trades for youthful arms that may help 2-3 years down the road. In which case, if 2011 or 2012 is the "next window", it's been argued that we have plenty of those.

[TooLiveBrew]

So I'm to be frustrated like you because you know what Melvin will (not) do this offseason? Frankly the notion that he's not going to move youth for young/cost-controlled SP this offseason makes me want to bang my head on my desk.