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

[EdgarDiazRocks]

Two good years in Tampa and Freidman's the golden child.

 

I don't think its stretching to say he will have three good years in a row after this year. Not just good, but very good.

And both Oakland and the Twins have had those stretches, and when Freidman showed up the cupboard was already stocked. Somebody earlier mention he obtained Kazmir, but Scott was already there (traded for in 04) and Shields, Neimann and Wade Davis were also already in the pipe. He Aquired TWO members of their current rotation and one of those guys was the no brainer #1 overall pick.

 

Jackson was a nice find, but he flipped him for a player who's upside is a 4th OF.

 

Don't get me wrong, The Garza\Young deal was a stunning success and one that most likely any other GM doesn't have the stones to pull off, but there was plenty left there to pick up the pieces if it Young exploded the other way, including two #1 overall picks and a #3 from 90 loss seasons. Selling Kazmir has worked out too, so far, but it's all tied up in Alex Torres' elbow.

 

A lot of GM's could have not punted on that farm system. He's put together a very nice orginazation, but he didn't build it from scratch (or alone) and it's once these guys start hitting arby years when it starts getting really tough.

[sheethead]

Nice post EdgarDiaz, I agree that it wasn't all Freidman who built the current Rays team.

[MJLiverock]

Ennder]

ut ultimately it's Melvin's responsibility. Whats that phrase, "s*** rolls up hill". He obviously felt that Jack Z's lack of ability of drafting a quality pitcher was not a good enough reason to replace him, probably because of his track record of drafting position players. So regardless of who made the actual draft pick, the results are just as much the responsibility of Melvin as they are of Jack Z.

 

Not singling you out in any way here but a lot of people on the forums want to give 100% credit for the good drafted players to Jack Z and 100% of the blame for the drafted players that didn't work out to Melvin. There is a pretty prevalent double standard at play on the forums.

The same could be said about the Melvin supporters as well. Every pitching arm picked up for next to nothing who wasn't a complete failure (Tomo Ohka?) is used to offset any criticism of the pitching rotation. Or the success of drafting hitters is a feather in his cap but the pitching woes is just bad luck in drafting, not just good luk in drafting hitters. Melvin is/was the top guy he is going to get the blame and accolades because it is his responsibility.

 

 

[lcbj68c]

A lot of GM's could have not punted on that farm system.  He's put together a very nice orginazation, but he didn't build it from scratch (or alone) and it's once these guys start hitting arby years when it starts getting really tough

 

No. Hellickson and Barnese are just a couple that could step in. Hes already bought out two fifths of the rotation with team friendly deals in David Price (6/8.5m) and Shields (4/11.5m). 6 years of David Price for less than the cost of 1 year of Suppan. Saying what Freidman has done as being "nice" is really a disservice.

[lcbj68c]

Boss, could you stop with the long nested quotes? I like to read your replies

but doing so on the iphone makes it really difficult.

[Invader3K]

Not sure why people rip Ohka. He was a solid bottom of the rotation starter (which we actually needed mid-'05 when we traded a guy we didn't need anymore in Spivey for him). He eventually got hurt, and then was a FA. Not a huge success, but not a failure for the Brewers like some seem to imply.

[strawbossisevil]

Boss, could you stop with the long nested quotes? I like to read your replies

but doing so on the iphone makes it really difficult.

Sorry. I just think it is best to address a person's post thought by thought, rather than lump my whole argument at the end where I feel it lends itself to greater misunderstanding/misrepresentation. I don't know how else I would do this other than nesting my comments (perhaps there is some way that I am unaware of).

[MJLiverock]

Not sure why people rip Ohka. He was a solid bottom of the rotation starter (which we actually needed mid-'05 when we traded a guy we didn't need anymore in Spivey for him). He eventually got hurt, and then was a FA. Not a huge success, but not a failure for the Brewers like some seem to imply.

I don't know if this was in reference to my post above but I said Ohka wasn't a failure but he isn't someone I would use as a counterpoint to the Melvin pitching woes. Ohka is as you suggested a end of the rotation stop gap who didn't completely suck. It reminds me of all the posts that reference, well Davis isn't bad for a back of the roation guy, Bush isn't bad for a back of the rotation guy, Parra isn't bad for a back of the roation guy, Narveson isn't bad for a back of the rotation guy, Suppan's numbers are like other 5th starters, etc. The problem is they can't all be compared to the 5th starter.

 

[logan82]

There was no room last year or this year to bring in an impact player via trade, because he has maxed out the payroll on Jason Kendall, Doug Davis, Jeff Suppan, Trevor Hoffman, etc. type players.

 

Just last year the Brewers tried to acquire Doug Davis before the trade deadline. Not a big deal obviously but I think Davis instead of the dreck we ran out there would have made a huge impact.

[strawbossisevil]

Melvin's pitching problems all come from a lack of top of the rotation starters. He's done fine bringing in the guys to fill in the middle and back end of the rotation. Unfortunately, top of the rotation starters almost always have to come from within one's own organization or via the trade of an elite player.

 

The Brewers under Jack Z didn't get enough pitching prospects into the minors, and the good pitching prospects he did add, all came up lame for one reason or another (although there is still a LOT of hope with a few of them (Rogers/Jeffress), but their arrival has been delayed significantly).

 

I think Melvin has been pretty average in regards to his responsibilities when it comes to the pitching staff. He has managed to bring in some pretty solid bottom of the rotation starters via trade. I think even Bush (pre-injury) would count as a pretty solid pick up.

 

But him having a middling budget and no money to go after a pitcher like Sabathia, and having no advance starting pitching prospects, has left him little choice but to have to sign middle of the road starters.

 

I think to look at the pitching staff and say "it stinks" and therefore Melvin "stinks" is far too simplistic. You have to look at the "why", and a lot of the "why" falls on the lack of players provided to the team by Jack Z.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

No. Hellickson and Barnese are just a couple that could step in.

And Hellickson was drafted in '05 before he got there.

 

His long term deals to young players are no different than what Jon Hart tried to do in Cleveland 15 years ago, and that didn't work exactly to perfection. They had their window 'tho. But Hart isn't actually considered a legend now.

 

There is always risk *cough* Ted Higuera *cough* involved. Harder to do that drafting in the #25 and up spot rather than #1-3

 

I'm just saying give it a few years before bumping Branch Rickey and John Schuerholtz.

[homer]

I would say there's as much luck involved in a player progressing as there is in actual scouting and player development.

[mletto157]

Aren't you all forgetting that Melvin has tried to address the "bad luck" in the pitcher area. I'm sure he was just as sick of all his top pitcher pickups getting injured as we are - which is why he picked up Rick Petersen. He is supposed to be the guy that will prevent this from happening to us as much in the future. His entire MO is fixing pitchers deliveries to make them safer and less injury-prone. The hope is in a few years we are talking about our pitching prospects who made it to the bigs, not who all got injured.

[logan82]

Right, it isn't like the Brewers have completely ignored their MiLB problems with pitchers and drafting. They started to make a change 2 years ago and it is to soon to see if it will make a difference.

[TheCrew07]

I think it's very difficult to change people's minds when they aren't really open to the concepts that are being dicussed in the first place. However, I think the greater points are being totally glossed over here. It takes a long time to address a pitching situation and Melvin hasn't even started yet. This is the reason so many of us are frustrated with Melvin, he's backed himself into the absolute worst possible position by the way he's manuevered through the organization's pitching issues. In fact, had different moves been made along the way we wouldn't have had to trade any position players that were performing well and everyone would be happy.

 

Once again I'll used the The Rays as example because I've studied them so much I know all of the deals by heart. The Rays made their key trades in 2004, 2006, and 2007, then it all came together for them in 2008. Friedman didn't fix the situation over night, he didn't trade for rentals, he didn't take back high floor players as the center pieces of the deals, he took advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves. The Rays basically stole Kazmir, it wasn't a horrible trade in the context of the time, SLG/OBP were the most sought after commodities in this time, but it sure looks bad now as Zambrano fell off so bad. As Louis pointed they acquired Jackson for a closer, well I'm telling you right now I'll trade my stud closer for top of the rotation pitching talent 100 % of the time. Starting pitchers have infinitely more value than relievers, and yes that even applies to closers, Friedman understands that idea, and jumped on the opportunity. In a Brewer context, if the Tigers wanted to trade me Porcello or Scherzer for Braddock or Axford I do that deal in a heartbeat. Finally the Young for Garza trade, 2 players with significant upside, both needing a change of scenery, looked to be a good deal for both sides, slightly favoring MN because Young looked to be HOF special as he was flying through the minors. Just a solid trade from the start, pitching is more valuable than hitting, I do feel bad for MN in this case. The bottom line here is that every time TB had expendable assets they focused on acquiring impact pitching, can we at least agree on that point?

 

Flip over that same concept and the Brewers have had similar opportunities spaced out over time to make key pitching acquisitions but haven't. Players like Hart/Hardy aside, Melvin had Overbay, Lee, and the players included in the Sabathia, Linebrink, and Lopez deals to move for starting pitching. He wasn't going to get an impact arm for a player like Kolb who had faltered and we were dumping, that just wasn't a realistic return for the value we were giving up. So Melvin has had the expendable resources on approx 4 different occassions to target starting pitching, 4 will be stretching it some breaking those prospects into 2 deals, so for the sake of argument lets just call it 3. So with those 3 opportunities Melvin netted exactly 1 starting pitcher for Milwaukee who last longer than a year, Dave Bush, who I really like as a pitcher, but had very limited upside. For Lee (leaving Cruz out of it) we got back Julian Cordero who never made it out of A ball, Franciso Cordero a closer (yay?), Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix (typical Melvin high floor players). Sabathia was great but was never going to be more than rental and as such he was never going to help bridge the gap to the youngsters in A ball. For Overbay we recieved 3 more players that all made a contribution (Jackson, Bush, Gross), but none of them were impact players (once again your typical high floor Melvin type acquisition). Even though I like Bush, I would have never targeted him personally, his K and BB rates just do nothing for me, his K rate had declined all the way under 7 by AAA, while Marcum's was up around 8 at the time of the trade at the same level.

 

TB went projectable pitcher, projectable pitcher, projectable pitcher in their 3 opportunities, not a single established "Name" player in the bunch like so many ideas on the transaction forum are based upon. Melvin went closer/depth (Lee), rental pitcher (Sabathia), depth (Overbay), I don't really see how he seized the opportunity with the assets he had in place? In fact, instead of trading to build value like Friedman did in TB, he traded to reduced value twice picking up a closer and rental player. In fact if I throw in Linebrink he's traded down in value 3 times. In the end, this is the biggest issue I have with Melvin, he doesn't seem to truly understand where the value lies in baseball. He continues to focus on the position players while assembling a rotation that is "good enough" on paper, but it never quite works out that way when the games are played. He also continues to spend way too much money on the bullpen and starting pitching in FA for very little return.

 

Value is the main concern here... not the idea that Melvin should have traded for a pitcher because we said he should. Sabathia was great, but what was his ultimate value to the franchise? A few more tickets sold which then became Looper, Wolf, and Davis? I'm not talking about the intangibles like getting the playoff monkey off our back or validating someone's fandom, I'm talking net effect between the lines. If the net effect of Sabathia was enough extra revenue to sign those 3 pitchers, which has ultimately led to a slide in the performance of the team, which will lead to a slide in ticket sales, which will lead to slide in payroll, and so on... how was that deal a positive for the franchise? Losing the narrow view of that trade based solely on the emotional response to a playoff appearnce, is the organization better off having made that deal? Backing away from the Sabathia situation and looking at Melvin's tenure as a whole, all we needed was to pick up 1 maybe 2 impact starters anywhere between the Sexson trade and 2009 and we would have been right there with STL last year and we'd right in the thick of the hunt again this year. I don't believe it's too much to ask that people widen their view and objectively look at the situation for what it is.

[logan82]

It takes a long time to address a pitching situation and Melvin hasn't even started yet.

 

This is where I think you are completely wrong. He has shifted to drafting more pitchers over the last couple years. We have several pitchers in the mid and low minors who might contribute by as early as next year. We have also not traded any players of much quality other than LaPorta over the last couple years either. You may not like that trade but it got us into the playoffs and if Sheets stays healthy we have a tremendous 1-2 punch in the rotation.

I don't believe it's too much to ask that people widen their view and objectively look at the situation for what it is.

 

I think you are wrong to call people as not being objective just because they have a differing view of how a franchise should be built up. We have already stated several times that some of us think Melvin did the right thing building a solid base on hitting before taking the next step. Melvin built the fan base back up so that we are not in the bottom of the league in salary year after year. We at the very least should hover around .500 and can have some good years when we bring up good prospects.

[zzzmanwitz]

Melvin traded for Jorge De La Rosa, Carlos Villanueva, Zach Jackson, and Jose Cappellan. All of those pitchers were considered upper tier pitching prospects. None of them have panned out as starting pitchers for the Brewers.

[MJLiverock]

JDLR was being traded for a 2nd time when Milwaukee got him as part of a huge package of players - - he was projectable but I don't think he was still considered a top prospect anymore but out of that list probably the highest ceiling guy.

 

Villanueva was had for Wayne Franklin while still in A ball, I doubt he was considered a top prospect or upper tier. Cappellan was already starting to lose status as well. Jackson was also losing his shine and was behind a few others in the Blue Jays organization as well as being part of a package of players which if he was a top tier prospect he wouldn't be part of a package of guys going for Overbay.

[lcbj68c]

And Hellickson was drafted in '05 before he got there.

 

No, he arrived in 2004. He played a great role in those 2004 and 2005 drafts as the Dir of Baseball Ops.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

TB went projectable pitcher, projectable pitcher, projectable pitcher in their 3 opportunities, not a single established "Name" player in the bunch like so many ideas on the transaction forum are based upon . . . we would have been right there with STL last year and we'd right in the thick of the hunt again this year. I don't believe it's too much to ask that people widen their view and objectively look at the situation for what it is.

I find this kinda funny because St. Louis for the most part is exactly the opposite of this, relying on scrap heap pitchers reclaimed by Dave Duncan and forgoing player development by trading off their prospects for usable major leaguers, and winning doing it.

 

My only complaint about Melvin is he lacks that crucial edge that John Schuerholtz had in spades, the ability to trade away that "projectable pitcher" or hitting stud for someone who helps you win now, at the major league level. Hall should have been flipped when Hall had value.

 

Every now and then Schuerholtz would give up a Adam Wainright, but for every one of him there were six David Neid's and Dan Meyer's.

 

Melvin tries too hard to straddle these two philosophies, but the point is, as always, there's more than one way to do this.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

And Hellickson was drafted in '05 before he got there.

 

No, he arrived in 2004. He played a great role in those 2004 and 2005 drafts as the Dir of Baseball Ops.

Please source. LaMar was the GM and Tim Wilkens and Cam Bonifay ran the scouting departments. None of whom are particularly shrinking violets. Most of the time Dir. of Player Ops deal with arby cases, here's a Q&A with the current one in Tampa , they have usually have nothing to do with the draft. . .

 

Sternberg wasn't in charge yet and Freidman's definitely his guy. And he was inexperienced enough at the time when they made him GM,that they made sure Hunsicker was there to help him with the ropes.

[lcbj68c]

TheCrew07,

 

Please provide a PO Box so might be able to send you a case of beer along with a MENSA application. Simply Genius.

[lcbj68c]

The Rays media guide advises Freidman was part of the baseball ops staff in 2004. Again, no GM is 100% responsible for their roster. Calling the Rays "nice" and nickel and diming Freidman is really a disservice. Accolades such as executive of the year and organization of the year normally aren't because your org is "nice".

[TooLiveBrew]

Accolades such as executive of the year

 

Which Doug Melvin of course won in 1996 http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[EdgarDiazRocks]

The Rays media guide advises Freidman was part of the baseball ops staff in 2004. Again, no GM is 100% responsible for their roster. Calling the Rays "nice" and nickel and diming Freidman is really a disservice. Accolades such as executive of the year and organization of the year normally aren't because your org is "nice".

Really?

 

You mean the same award Jim Bowden won in 1999? ....

 

EDIT: TLB beat me to the Melvin punch, so I'll throw in Sabean winning it in 2003 and that Schuerholtz won it a total of once, with the Royals in 1985, and that Sandy Alderson, Beane, Epstein and Cashman have NEVER won it.