anyone else seeing big changes ahead? Latest: Mark A says Melvin is going to be here a long time, Macha will not be fired Monday

[zzzmanwitz]

Payrolls in DM's term

 

2010: $ 90,408,000

2009: $ 80,182,502

2008: $ 80,937,499

2007: $ 70,986,500

2006: $ 57,568,333

2005: $ 39,934,833

2004: $ 27,528,500

2003: $ 40,627,000

 

He's just started getting more money to use. So you can't use his tenure for winning percentage and not take into account that this team was still a very low payroll team for the first 5 years of his tenure.

 

Like i said in my post, coming into this year, it seemed like the 90 million he spent was done so in a very smart manner. However, none of the FA pitchers he has signed has performed anywhere near their expectations. Its not like there were signs pointing to this massive drop off either, so I'm not sure what you expected him to do, other than sell some of our lineup, but then we wouldn't be a top hitting club.

 

I understand your frustration on missing out on some possible trades, I just have a hard time analyzing something that didn't happen. We just don't know who he talked to or which prospects were offered for which pitchers. When he has made trades, more often than not, DM has gotten the better end of the deal (people will be arguing until the end of time on who won the Lee/Cruz for Cordero/Mench trade).

 

Has he made some signings that haven't worked out? Yes, without a doubt. But if you go back to when the signing was made (possibly outside of the Suppan deal), he is usually making a signing that most of us agree with.

[strawbossisevil]

However, I don't think that two years of less than par baseball after a good 2-3 year run should be something to fire DM for, after coming off 15 years of crap.

 

Can we stop comparing DM to 15 years ago? Should Dean Taylor and his 35M payroll in 2000 be comparable to Doug Melvin and his success in 2008 with his $80M payroll? DM's winning percentage is .475. The 15 years prior to DM we won .455 pct of our games. A 2% increase while working with $60-90M payroll instead of $30M payrolls. I think it's silly compare these two timeframes.

Since MLB salaries have nearly doubled in the past 10 years, 35M went a lot further in 2000 than it does today.

The other problem with your analysis in comparing Melvin's win pct. is that his first few years here, he inherited many of the problems of the poorly run teams before him. A team make over takes time.

 

And why did you choose 15 years to be the benchmark? How about comparing Melvin's 8 year tenor to the previous 8 years before him?

 

Melvin's 8 years: .475

8 years before Melvin: .445

 

Also, in Melvin's 8 years the team has finished at .500 or above three times.

In the 8 years before he took over the team they finished at .500 or above no times.

To me, all of those moves seem like win now moves. To recap, he's put together one of the best lineups in all of baseball, did his best to improve his pitching staff through FA (and most signs pointed to those moves being quality moves), and still has a lot of exciting talent in the farm. To me that is a successful GM.

He is a successful GM, but why is he the man to get us to the next level? Because .475 and 1 playoff win over going on 8 seasons while spending $90M dollars doesnt seem like something worthy of continuing forward. If he were being given $60M, then yeah, I'd be tickled. But new ownership has come to expect more. Sometimes the answer isn't spending that money on the best FA pitcher that will come here. How about smart trades like Tampa always pulls off? Frankly, that is the kind of GM I think we need to get to the next level. Not 2nd Tier FA pitching, expensive bullpens and nuggets.

When two thirds of the league spends around 90 million (give or take a few million), it can hardly be assumed to offer automatic success. And as I said before, I don't think it is fair for us to judge Melvin on his first few seasons as he was getting rid of the stink that was left everywhere by the previous management. A GM change doesn't pay dividends in the short term.

 

There are maybe two or three GMs who pull off trades like the guy in Tampa. The odds of us getting a GM that good are very unlikely. Far more likely is that we would end up with a GM who is worse than what we've seen from Melvin. The Tampa GM is likely the #1 GM in the whole league, so yeah, having a guy like that would make us much better, but good luck finding that guy.

 

And the 2nd Tier FA pitching/expensive bullpens are a direct result from a lack of minor league pitching being developed. That falls more on Jack Z then it does on Melvin.

[lcbj68c]

Strawboss, I agree with the points you make, but at some point when all this minor league pitching talent is getting unlucky, why is it not being addressed? Why is the answer to see failures in Suppan & Looper and replace them with Davis & Wolf. If you're backup plan is to pitch Chris Narveson anyways if Davis/Suppan fail, why not just start the season with AAAA guys and save yourself some cash? If my house is failing apart DM seemingly gets off the hook for Jack Z not getting any pitching, but gets hailed for putting together a great lineup? Well, can't have that both ways. I just can't believe that when your minor leaguers are "having bad luck", that the answer is to go out and spend more money on average veterans.

 

What does it matter at the end of the day if you pitch your AAAA guys, spend 60M and win .455 pct of your games, or you pitch average MLB'ers, spend 90M and win .475 pct of your games? Besides worsening draft position?

[zzzmanwitz]

When did the Brewers have a good 2-3 year run?

 

.520 Winning % from 2007-2009.

 

1 playoff appearance when our #1b pitcher got hurt. Lost to the eventual WS champs.

 

More playoff victories than the cubs since 2004. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[lcbj68c]

And why did you choose 15 years to be the benchmark? How about comparing Melvin's 8 year tenor to the previous 8 years before him?

 

Because that is what Zach had said, 15 years of suckage before him. 8 years does seem like a better comparison. But again .475 to .445 is 4-5 more wins per year.

 

And the 2nd Tier FA pitching/expensive bullpens are a direct result from a lack of minor league pitching being developed. That falls more on Jack Z then it does on Melvin.

 

That's fine, but then we can't be heralding him for Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Escobar, Lawrie, Cain etc.

 

More playoff victories than the cubs since 2004.

 

Now that's something I can hang my hat on!

[strawbossisevil]

Strawboss, I agree with the points you make, but at some point when all this minor league pitching talent is getting unlucky, why is it not being addressed? Why is the answer to see failures in Suppan & Looper and replace them with Davis & Wolf. If you're backup plan is to pitch Chris Narveson anyways if Davis/Suppan fail, why not just start the season with AAAA guys and save yourself some cash? If my house is failing apart DM seemingly gets off the hook for Jack Z not getting any pitching, but gets hailed for putting together a great lineup? Well, can't have that both ways. I just can't believe that when your minor leaguers are "having bad luck", that the answer is to go out and spend more money on average veterans.

 

What does it matter at the end of the day if you pitch your AAAA guys, spend 60M and win .455 pct of your games, or you pitch average MLB'ers, spend 90M and win .475 pct of your games? Besides worsening draft position?

Probably because a team with Wolf, Davis, Hawkins, and Hoffman pitching at the level we've expected them to would have produced a team that would have been much better than a .475 winning pct. A team with all of those performing as expected going into the season would be a team at least in the running for a playoff spot. Especially if you add in the fact that Fielder has been producing well below where he should be expected to be, and an outfield that has been banged up. You take those things into consideration you have a team that looked like it could compete for the playoffs on paper heading into the regular season, and has just not lived up to those expectations. The margin for error was somewhat small for the Brewers this season if they were going to contend for a playoff spot. But seeing as this should be Prince's last season with the Crew, it was worth a shot. Unfortunately it just hasn't worked out.

 

At this point, with all of the under-performance, yes, I would prefer the Brewers focus on the guys who will be around come 2012 when I think our next run will start. I think the Brewers should take a look at guys like Naverson and Parra and find out over the course of the rest of the season who we've got in them.

[zzzmanwitz]

Why is the answer to see failures in Suppan & Looper and replace them with Davis & Wolf.

 

I don't know how many times I need to post this before you keep referring to Davis and Wolf as horrible decisions. Hind sight is 20/20.

 

Doug Davis from 2005-2009 (Age 29-33)

4.28 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, ERA+ 106, Average 194 IP per season (6.06 IP/GS)

 

Doug Davis 2010

7.56 ERA, 1.98 WHIP, ERA+ 54, 33.1 IP (4.7 IP/GS)

 

Braden Looper from 2005-2009 (Age 30-34)

4.57 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, ERA+ 93, Average 140 IP per season (2 seasons spent in BP, about 190 IP per season as Starter)

 

Randy Wolf from 2005-2009 (Age 28-32)

4.14 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, ERA+ 100, Average 129 IP per season (Injuries first 3 season, injury free last 2 for 202 IP average, 5.86 IP/GS)

 

Randy Wolf 2010

5.10 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, ERA+ 80, 54.2 IP (6.07 IP/GS)

 

Jeff Suppan 2005-2009 (Age 30-34)

4.48 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, ERA+ 96, Average 186 IP per season (5.8 IP/GS)

 

I guess by looking at these numbers, I don't understand how you could expect the brewers pitching staff to not improve by adding Davis and Wolf to the fold.

[sheethead]

this team was still a very low payroll team for the first 5 years of his tenure.

 

I'll give you three years, but after that I have a hard time seeing Melvin's payroll as very low.

 

Just because most people think the signings were fine doesn't make them good signings. I hated most of them.

 

Doug Davis $5.25 million

Dave Bush $4.2 million

Hawkins $7.5 million

Hoffman $8 million ($2 million more than in 2009 - and another year older!!!)

Claudio Vargas $1 million

 

Add in Suppan's $12.5 million I hated from day one, and that is nearly $38.5 million I would have spent elsewhere, or not at all and started saving for a big sign down the road.

 

I was OK with Zaun because we needed a one year stop gap, and I liked the Riske and Bill Hall signs. But the money above is money I would not have spent, and Melvin had cheaper, more serviceable options available (granted not proven, but Axford/Narveson were up last year and looked to be fine). You simply cannot continue to count on the Doug Davis' and Trevor Hoffman's to keep on keeping-on their whole life. The tough decisions need to be made in a more aggressive manner. Simply giving X player $5 million because he was good last year is a terrible way to go about building a team, especially when we are talking about 37 year-old bullpen arms. This management team needs to get smarter and be more aggressive, otherwise we will be watching garbage baseball for the next 5 years (or however many empty seats and losing seasons Mark Attanasio can stomach).

 

Melvin has done a horrible job in Free Agency (outside of Counsell), and personally, he should just stay away from past their prime vets.

[strawbossisevil]

And why did you choose 15 years to be the benchmark? How about comparing Melvin's 8 year tenor to the previous 8 years before him?

 

Because that is what Zach had said, 15 years of suckage before him. 8 years does seem like a better comparison. But again .475 to .445 is 4-5 more wins per year.

4-5 wins per season on average is pretty significant. And the number goes up if you leave off the first year or two of his regime.

And the 2nd Tier FA pitching/expensive bullpens are a direct result from a lack of minor league pitching being developed. That falls more on Jack Z then it does on Melvin.

 

That's fine, but then we can't be heralding him for Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Escobar, Lawrie, Cain etc.

That's fair. However, I think Melvin has done a very good job when he has made trades. As much as he was ridiculed for the Gomez/Hardy trade. To this point of the season, Hardy has an OPS of .699 (w/ an OBP of .299), while Gomez has an OPS of .804. It is becoming more and more clear that Gomez has the higher ceiling of the two. He also has a very good talent for bringing in nuggets that were given up on by their former teams. McGehee has been a huge pick up for this team and has filled what was a gapping hole at 3b for many, many years. He brought in Branyan. Ohka. Davis (the first go around). Podsednick. Kolb. Hoffman (last season). Coffey. He traded for C. Villanueva who has become a very solid set up man.

 

Where he has struggled is when he has had his back pressed up against the wall in the area of starting pitching, and left with little other choice but to go the free agent route. And despite that, most of the moves (aside from Suppan - who I think Mark A pushed for) that he made in that respect were not seen as all that bad when the signings were done, the players just haven't lived up to what the typical baseball statistician had projected for them.

More playoff victories than the cubs since 2004.

 

Now that's something I can hang my hat on!

And long term, I think our organization is a whole lot better set up for future success than the Cubs, despite their whopping payroll advantage.

[sheethead]

.520 Winning % from 2007-2009.

 

1 playoff appearance when our #1b pitcher got hurt. Lost to the eventual WS champs.

 

More playoff victories than the cubs since 2004.

 

If that is what satisfies us, I feel bad for us.

[zzzmanwitz]

I will agree with you on the RP. 15.5 million on back end bullpen is absurd, but I just cannot get in your boat on the rotation. You are suggesting we started the year with the following rotation.

 

Yovanni

Wolf

Parra

Suppan

Narveson

 

Suppan has been useless and should be out. Now who? Estrada, ok.

 

Yovanni

Wolf

Parra

Narveson

Estrada

 

What if someone gets hurt? Capuano? Loe? If you are committing to a playoff run (which Melvin was), that pitching depth just isn't going to cut it.

[sheethead]

I guess by looking at these numbers, I don't understand how you could expect the brewers pitching staff to not improve by adding Davis and Wolf to the fold.

 

Looking at their ages, and the fact that they were just okay in their prime to begin with, I don't understand how anyone would be amazed by under-performance from any of them.

[zzzmanwitz]

If that is what satisfies us, I feel bad for us.

 

I'm not satisfied, but its a start. There are a lot of decisions to be made over the next few years with our first crop of minor league talent and I want DM to be the one to make those decisions. Now if we only make the playoffs once over the next 4-6 years when our 2nd crop of minor leaguers come up, then I'll start to take issue.

[sheethead]

Maybe I can't get over the fact that I have always thought Doug Davis was a bad pitcher. He walks too many batters, and walks too many hitters for me to think he is good, let alone deserving of $5 million at his age. Its commendable what he has done in MLB given his skill set, but why roll the dice on no upside, and only downside? Yes, I'd rather bring a bunch of guys to ST and have some unknown take that spot than roll the dice and $5 million on Doug Davis.

 

As for Bush, I was on the fence at the time, so I can't for sure say I would have non-tendered him. But Narveson has looked way better than him this year, and looked good last September as well. Bigger arm, better control, and doesn't seem to blow up the way Bush does. So yeah, I would have done this at $10 million less, and saved the flexibility for a later time.

 

Yovanni

Wolf

Parra

Narveson

Estrada/X Pitcher

 

Does anyone honestly believe that Doug Davis is a playoff caliber starting pitcher? Really?

 

Now if we only make the playoffs once over the next 4-6 years when our

2nd crop of minor leaguers come up, then I'll start to take issue.

 

 

With Mevlin at the helm, I will be ecstatic if the Brewers reach the playoffs just one more time. I don't see it happening.

[strawbossisevil]

this team was still a very low payroll team for the first 5 years of his tenure.

 

I'll give you three years, but after that I have a hard time seeing Melvin's payroll as very low.

 

Just because most people think the signings were fine doesn't make them good signings. I hated most of them.

 

Doug Davis $5.25 million

Dave Bush $4.2 million

Hawkins $7.5 million

Hoffman $8 million ($2 million more than in 2009 - and another year older!!!)

Claudio Vargas $1 million

 

Add in Suppan's $12.5 million I hated from day one, and that is nearly $38.5 million I would have spent elsewhere, or not at all and started saving for a big sign down the road.

 

I was OK with Zaun because we needed a one year stop gap, and I liked the Riske and Bill Hall signs. But the money above is money I would not have spent, and Melvin had cheaper, more serviceable options available (granted not proven, but Axford/Narveson were up last year and looked to be fine). You simply cannot continue to count on the Doug Davis' and Trevor Hoffman's to keep on keeping-on their whole life. The tough decisions need to be made in a more aggressive manner. Simply giving X player $5 million because he was good last year is a terrible way to go about building a team, especially when we are talking about 37 year-old bullpen arms.

Except this isn't being honest. It wasn't like they just had one year's worth of good performances to justify their contracts. With most of these signings they had shown to be reliable over the long term. The question also remains, would you have spent the money it took to get Hoffman for 2009? What mysterious foresight would have told you not to sign him after putting up such a great season?

 

I wasn't too thrilled with the Hawkins signing. But I did feel, as I'm sure everyone did, that he would be providing quality innings for our bullpen. As for the idea that we should have made NO FA signings, our upper minors is just not stocked enough with arms to not have made some FA signings. Braddock is looking really good now, but going into the offseason he was a bit of an unknown. Not signing Davis and Bush would have left us with only 5 starters to start the season (Yo, Wolf, Parra, Naverson, and Suppan). Clearly our team needed to bring someone else in, as neither Naverson nor Parra were built up for a full season of being a SP, and there being likely injuries that would have to be addressed (but having no pitchers to fill in when injuries happened).

 

Clearly the way the Brewers spent the money didn't work out, but they had to bring at least one or two more starters in this offseason because of major league ready starting pitching.

This management team needs to get smarter and be more aggressive, otherwise we will be watching garbage baseball for the next 5 years (or however many empty seats and losing seasons Mark Attanasio can stomach).

 

Melvin has done a horrible job in Free Agency (outside of Counsell), and personally, he should just stay away from past their prime vets.

His signing of Hoffman last year was not horrible. His signing of Davis (the first time) was solid as well. Zaun and Kottaras were both good pick ups this offseason. His signing of Kolb (the first time around) was great. Mike Cameron was a very good signing. Edmonds (despite his injury) has been a solid bench option to this point in the season. Branyon was a solid free agent signing.

 

Really, Melvin hasn't been nearly as bad at FAs as you like to state. He's struggled to fill in the pitching gaps at times, but I think that can be expected when the farm system has produced next to nothing as far as big league talent is concerned. Most good pitchers do not hit FA, and the ones who are good typically get snatched up by the big markets, leaving the scraps to the small markets. And operating in Milwaukee, has been a deterrent to even some of the mid-level FA types. So Melvin's hands are very much tied as to who he can bring in.

If that is what satisfies us, I feel bad for us.

Being a small market club means we have to temper our expectations. We can maybe expect a world series run once every 20 years or so, and a playoff run every 3-4 years. Anything beyond that is probably being unrealistic.

[sheethead]

The question also remains, would you have spent the money it took to get Hoffman for 2009?

 

No. $6 million for a 41 year-old closer is not wise to me unless that player is still touching 96mph and named Mariano Rivera. Even then I might flinch. Sure it worked out in 2009, but now I really wish he would have been terrible last year. Who knew Melvin would give him even MORE this year?

 

Really, Melvin hasn't been nearly as bad at FAs as you like to state.

 

The big money ones, yes. He has been very bad. The plugs and stop gaps, who really notices a Greg Zaun? Where is he? Edmonds? Kolb was a good closer for a minute.

 

Being a small market club means we have to temper our expectations.

 

You can temper your expectations, I don't have a problem with that. But do NOT expect me to temper my expectations, or even tell me I have to. I won't do it.

[strawbossisevil]

The question also remains, would you have spent the money it took to get Hoffman for 2009?

 

No. $6 million for a 41 year-old closer is not wise to me unless that player is still touching 96mph and named Mariano Rivera. Even then I might flinch. Sure it worked out in 2009, but now I really wish he would have been terrible last year. Who knew Melvin would give him even MORE this year?

 

Really, Melvin hasn't been nearly as bad at FAs as you like to state.

 

The big money ones, yes. He has been very bad. The plugs and stop gaps, who really notices a Greg Zaun? Where is he? Edmonds? Kolb was a good closer for a minute.

I would consider Mike Cameron a big money signing (and an older player). And last I checked, he did a pretty solid job for us in CF for two seasons. I love how you dismiss any player that goes against your preconceived notion.

Being a small market club means we have to temper our expectations.

 

You can temper your expectations, I don't have a problem with that. But do NOT expect me to temper my expectations, or even tell me I have to. I won't do it.

Well, then I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration. Our team is at a natural disadvantage. We are likely never going to be any higher than 3rd in regards to payroll in our division (behind St. Louis and Chicago). And will probably typically end up behind Houston as well in the long term. That gives those teams a natural advantage especially when it comes to signing their own players and adding more talent via Free Agency. We need to have a perfect storm of prospects, timing, and luck in order to compete. Some years it will happen, most of the time it will not.

 

Once again, you are entitled to your own thoughts. No one can tell you how to think. But I think you are setting yourself up for a lot of stress and frustration by having unrealistic expectations.

[Ennder]

You can temper your expectations, I don't have a problem with that. But do NOT expect me to temper my expectations, or even tell me I have to. I won't do it.

 

That is why your expectations will never be met no matter what GM runs the team because they simply are not realistic. Over the past 5 years the Brewers have 409 wins. The Cardinals have 438 wins over that same time frame. The Cubs have 410. The other teams in the NL Central all have fewer than the Brewers. To say that is somehow a failure is just flat out wrong. The Braves only have 411, the Dodgers 420, the Mets 427, the Phillies 447. All other NL teams have fewer wins than the Brewers over the last 5 years.

 

So the Brewers have the 7th most wins of any NL team over the past 5 years and are 2 wins away from the team with the 5th most all while still in the middle of rebuilding the franchise and with a below average payroll for the majority of the time and that is a failure?

[TheCrew07]

Jocketty and Friedman have been very successful GMs. Dan O'Dowd's Rockies' have a career 769-852 entering this season. This is his 12th season. 8 of his previous 11 seasons the Rockies had losing records.

 

Jon Dainels first year he traded Alfonso Soriano, for, um,not much. He signed innings eater Kevin Millwood (hello Doug Melvin!), and traded Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka (ouch!). That must be one of the worst trades of the millennium. He also engineered the Carlos Lee trade, which turned successful for him thanks to Nelson Cruz.

 

His next season he turned John Danks into Brandon McCarthy. Ooh, the 2nd worst trade of the millennium. His Volquez for Hamilton trade is debatable.

 

The Texeira trade was an excellent move. I'm not ready to say Daniels is a genius. Lots of his success is based on a farm system built by his predecessor, John Hart. Their best starting pitchers this year are C.J Wilson and Colby Lewis. Both drafted by *gasp* Doug Melvin!

 

The Orioles are horrible. They have some good young pitching, some of which MacPhail acquired, some that was already in the organization. But it's mostly tied to 5-6 top arms; there's not a lot of depth. They have no hitting prospects in the minors. Their AA roster is full of guys in their mid-20s, hardly prospect age for that level. I think Oriole fans would hesitate to put MacPhail in their Top 10 GM list at this point.

I just deleted an entire post about each GM, and I'm too irritated to retype the entire thing.

 

O'Dowd has completely changed the way he approaches team building, that's very rare that a GM changes his tact mid stream. The Rockies are well positioned as an organization for current and future success. They've made the playoffs twice in the last 3 years including a WS appearance. Cook, Smith, and Hammel has been pretty horrible to start the season and the Rockies are still 22-22. I'm not a fan of signing closers like he did with Fuentes, he's also been pretty bad to start the season.

 

Jon Daniels started off horribly, especially trade wise. He definitely learned his lesson and always emphasized scouting and player development. He's gotten much better over time, the organization is already loaded with hitting at MLB, they have a ton of young pitching coming, they no longer have a single bad contract, and one of the best farm systems in the entire game. This organization is in position to take off like TB.

 

I think you need to re-evaluate your position on Baltimore, you've done them a huge disservice. The organization continues to emphasize pitching, they are only struggling because the 3 youngsters in the rotation have pitched pretty horribly. Tillman and Arrieta are at AAA, they could have an entirely home grown rotation by next season. They have a very nice OF, a great catching prospect, and 2 good corner IF prospects in Bell and Snyder, and they continued to focus on pitching in this year's draft.

[TheCrew07]

And long term, I think our organization is a whole lot better set up for future success than the Cubs, despite their whopping payroll advantage.

This just isn't true at all... the only thing holding back the Cubs right now is a plethora of bad contracts, I think you need to take a closer look at their farm system.

[sheethead]

I would consider Mike Cameron a big money signing (and an older player). And last I checked, he did a pretty solid job for us in CF for two seasons. I love how you dismiss any player that goes against your preconceived notion.

 

There's one. Show me where I dismissed Mike Cameron. You're argument is not meshing well with mine. I don't do stuff like this.

 

That is why your expectations will never be met no matter what GM runs the team because they simply are not realistic.

 

Your expectations are too soft. If they lead to you never being disappointed, then great. Other GM's are having success that meets my expectations, with less spending. Forgive me for wanting a Brewer GM to do the same.

To say that is somehow a failure is just flat out wrong.

 

Again, just like the other poster, show me where I said Melvin is a failure overall as a GM. He's average. C student I might say. Just because he has more wins than the Pirates, Reds, and Astros does not mean he is a success.

 

So the Brewers have the 7th most wins of any NL team over the past 5 years

 

Heh, average, right? To say I said Melvin is a failure of a GM is flat out wrong.

[LouisEly]

So why did we spend $90M+ to win at a .377 clip?

 

Because the season isn't decided after 44 games, it's decided after 162 games. They have 118 games to make up 8.5 games on the Cardinals. The season is far from over.

[paul253]

Our team is at a natural disadvantage. We are likely never going to

be any higher than 3rd in regards to payroll in our division

Tampa will probably never have more than the 4th or even the 5th highest payroll in their division. They are also in the same division where two teams can get pretty much any FA they want. It shows how valuable a GM who knows how to acquire good young pitching is. That's a trait Melvin has failed to shown in his 8 years here. I have faith that Melvin can keep this team playing around a .500 clip each year and keep us in the 3rd-4th place spot in our division. I am not satisfied with that. With the talent he acquired with those high draft picks from all those years of terrible records, I don't think a .475 winning percentage and one wild card appearance in 8 years can be considered a success.

 

[lcbj68c]

I'm well aware. It's still early right?

 

I'm all for Melvin staying if he is willing to change his approach when the next crop of pitching gets "unlucky". Because everyday when I have the local radio on and get reminded of how the Rays have an entire starting rotation that costs less than one year of Jeff Suppan, I throw up in my mouth a little bit. There are other options besides what looks good on paper. Missing on an aging pitcher or two is going to happen. That is acceptable. Missing on an entire fleet of them is beyond unlucky and perhaps he should really consider a different tactic.

[strawbossisevil]

Ah yes, he should just trade for a young guy who will be a top/middle of the rotation starter. How can Melvin not understand this? It's so simple!