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

[strawbossisevil]

Crew07,

 

People have pointed out the flaws in your reasoning a number of times. So much of your argument fails because it is incapable of knowing what Melvin was offered for the pieces you list. You continually bring up Marcum from Toronto without having any knowledge of whether Toronto made him available to the Brewers. You just aren't capable of stating such things as objective truth, it isn't that simple.

 

I think you handwaved over the Overbay trade in getting Zach Jackson. Now, Jackson flamed out as a AAAA player, but he was seen as a huge piece in that deal, a guy who had the potential to be a #2 or #3 in the bigs. That's a fairly high ceiling! But it's a ceiling he never hit. The other guy he added, Bush, was more of a projectable middle of the rotation guy, so Doug went after both types in that deal. He didn't have a super amount of leverage and let's not act as if Overbay was a huge trading commodity, he was an average offensive 1B.

 

In the Sexson trade the Brewers did the exact same thing. They went with one high ceiling arm (JDLR) and one projectable arm (Capuano). It turns out that Capuano reached the peak of his potential (solid #2) while JDLR never came close to his high ceiling (at least with the Brewers).

 

In the trading of Kolb (a closer) the Brewers received one of the Braves top pitching prospects in Capellan (just like the D-Rays selling on their closer). A guy recognized by many including Baseball America as having a very high ceiling. The difference was that the move paid off for the Rays (with Jackson) and didn't pay off for the Brewers.

 

In the LaPorta trade, the Brewers did give up two B grade prospects for a shot at the playoffs. It paid off (and without that move we may have not made the playoffs at all during the time of the Fielder/Braun combo - a possibility that you still refuse to admit to). LaPorta and Brantley could have theoretically been moved for a pitcher, but with Brantley's lack of power and LaPorta's hole in his swing, I don't know how good of a pitching prospect they would have netted us. That is up to speculation, but going with the other pitcher almost certainly would have meant no playoffs in '08.

 

Also calling Nix a high floor guy isn't being honest. He was a high ceiling type player, and had previously been one of Texas' top prospects (although he had fallen a bit from the team's favor). That was a buy low/change of scenery situation if I ever saw one, he just never met his potential.

 

So if you look at the majority of Melvin's major moves. Aside from the Lee/Cordero move all of them addressed starting pitching. The Kolb deal, the Overbay deal, and the Sexson deal all went after young high ceiling pitching. The difference between us and the Rays is that all their moves paid off handsomely (Garza rebounded from his poor start with Minnesota, Jackson met his potential etc.) while the Brewer's high ceiling guys all flopped when trying to make the transition to the big leagues.

 

To say Melvin has done nothing is dishonest, he's tried, it just hasn't worked out despite bringing in high ceiling guys. And, with the moving on of Jack Z, he along with Bruce S have changed our draft focus to target more high ceiling pitchers a few years ago. That wave of pitchers, however, are still about a year or two away at this point.

[monty57]

Accolades such as executive of the year

 

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

And Jack Z won while with the Brewers, making him the only non-GM to win that award. Of course, in this thread Melvin has been chided for not firing Jack Z due to his inability to draft pitchers.

 

Look, being a GM is an inexact science. Sometimes you make the "right" move and it fails, and sometimes you make the "wrong" move and it pays off. Most here were laughing at the Cubs for trading Bradley for Silva (even though Bradley was kicked off the team last year). Now Jack Z looks foolish for the move. I am happy for Tampa, as they are the ray of light (no pun intended) that can keep one of the Yankees/Red Sox combo out of the playoffs. It is good that they really haven't failed on any of their "high ceiling" pitching prospects. That's basically what made Billy Beane a household name. He had three really good pitchers that all pitched to their vast potential and avoided injury and they carried him to a number of division titles. Melvin has swung and missed on almost all of his "high ceiling" pitching prospects. Maybe that is enough to fire him, but I don't think it's correct to say he's never tried bringing any in. Other than Sexson, the chips he's traded away really haven't been "blue chip," and if any one of a long list of pitchers that Melvin has brought in had reached their potential, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'll be brushed aside as whining about Melvin's bad luck, but it really seems to be a large part of what's happened. He's had tremendous "luck" in having a good share of his hitters pan out and he's had horrendous "luck" with his pitchers. Again, I see the addition of Peterson as a step in addressing that "bad luck," and hopefully he pays dividends. As far as learning a lesson, it appears Melvin has decided that since so few of his young SPs pan out, he's going to amass a horde of "high ceiling" arms and a few of them will have to make it.

[sheethead]

Why is everyone's opinion considered, "not being honest" in here? I'm rather nautious, and I'm being totally honest.

 

Sooooooo... any big changes coming?

[lcbj68c]

No Big Changes expected. Better to rest on the laurels of changing luck.

[sheethead]

Things are going to change, I can feel it. How does the rest of that song go?

[MJLiverock]

Well strawboss, one could say your arguments have been proven wrong by the fact that the pitching staff does indeed suck. The Melvin supporters want to give Melvin credit for the success of the hitting or picking up a McGehee but pass the buck on the pitching woes to scouting directors or underlings who apparenlty made all the bad decsions without Melvin's help while Melvin was buys making all the right calls. Or the old Melvin's luck has been bad with regards to pitching, never considering that maybe his luck was just good at drafting hitters if luck is such an important role. If luck can be blamed for poor choices it can certanly be used on the other side for choices that worked out.

When a front office has been wrong so many times on pitchers I can't just chalk it up to luck, it is an alarming trend. All of these so called high ceiling prospects flamed out - - could it be that the opposing GM was willing to give them up as minor pieces of deals because they really weren't that good? As has been mentioned many times by the Melvinites, young projectable pitching is hard to obtain, so why do so many think guys like JDLR, Jackson, Aquino, were thrown in on package deals or Cappellan was nabbed for a broken down flash in the pan reliever? Melvin could very well be the sucker in all these trades rather than just having bad luck half a dozen or more times, he and his staff could just be really bad at judging pitching talent.

Lookinig at the state of how bad the pitching is in Milwaukee I don't know why it is so hard to just admit Melvin may not be that great at assembling a pitching staff. He has done a great job in finding hitters, no complaints there even with room for improvement but overall pretty good. Pitching though has been putrid throught the draft and thru free agency. Plenty of guys are good at one aspect of coaching, managing, etc.

[lcbj68c]

You know what I would be for. Doug Melvin remaining the GM, but somebody like Matt Arnold or Feinstein as an Assistant GM to give

a fresh set of eyes to this problem. Maybe Gord Ash doesnt provide enough of what Melvin needs.

[TheCrew07]

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.

What? We do people keep posting this stuff. JDLR certainly was... but that was in 2003. I clearly stated between the Sexson trade and 2009... Villy and Jackson were/are pitchability guys, neither one of those guys ever threw any where near the mid 90s, in fact their average FB velocity was <90, which is extremely average. Cappellan waa acquired for Dan Kolb, a faltering closer who we were dumping, people consistently overrate how good Kolb was and what we wer getting back in Cappellan. He topped out at 93, had no control, and his secondary pitches weren't very good at all, and Atlanta knew it, I'm not sure how the Brewers didn't know it. I'm sorry but I'm actually laughing right now, Villy was acquired for Estrella and Franklin for goodness sake, no one ever considered him an upper tier pitching prospect.

 

Idon'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.

How exactly was drafting in pitching in 2008 going to help prior to 2012 or 13. We needed to trade for pitching while trying to develop it through the draft, not just hope that our draft picks would make it. When Jones, Rogers, and Parra all got hurt what did Melvin do to address the situation? Tell me, what did he do? Come on... built up the fan base? Because winning in general wouldn't do that regardless of how it's done? The only way for a small market team to remain competitive from year to year is the pitching. If you honestly believe the best way to build a small market organization is through the offense, then either you haven't put much thought into the economics of the game, or you're just blindly defending Melvin. That opinions strikes me as a justification rather than a well thought opinion. This situation right here is exactly what happens when pitching isn't a priority, it's been proven time and time again, Melvin has proven it himself in both Milwaukee and Texas. Philly had a great offense for years and didn't win anything until they got pitching, Texas and Detroit had great offenses in 2008 but didn't win anything, we had a great offense last year and didn't win, Colorado had a great offense for years and didn't win anything, etc, etc, etc.

 

Go back as far you want looking at who wins in the post season, it's incredibly obvious what it takes. I think many people think that spending the most money we can to get the best player we can afford in FA is good value, when nothing could be further from the truth. FA pitching is the worst possible value in all of baseball, with spending on the bullpen being the absolute worst way to spend money. To compete with the big boys your pitching has to match up, they can buy FA impact pitching, we aren't able to afford anything more than Wolf or Suppan in FA and simply put those guys just don't match up. The Twins still haven't caught on to this, they always have just enough pitching, but never enough to truly compete for a WS.

 

So being average here is the goal then? This where the difference lies, I look around baseball and I see teams doing more with less, I look at this team and we're better off with the youngsters than we are with the older players, we could have done much better with less. We can't win consistently because we're Milwaukee... Well I think that perspective is garbage. While we are the smallest market and need to stay within certain financial limitations, 80 million is plenty enough to compete every year if it's spent wisely. We had 2 HOF quality talents here at the same time and managed a single 1 and done in the playoffs... if that's the best we can do then why are we wasting our time as fans? Do we not realize how fortunate we've been to get 2 players of that offensive talent at the same time? I don't want an occasional shot at the post season, I want to compete every year. Some years the team will get hit hard by injuries and it won't be in the cards, but the rest of time why shouldn't we be able to compete?

 

lcbj68c brought up an excellent point that was largely ignored. TB is paying less for their entire rotation (ERAs of 2.37, 2.41, 2.54, 2.99, 4.01) than we will have to pay Suppan this year with his buyout. Shouldn't that fact alone be convincing enough of what a poor job Melvin has done with the pitching? Why could Tampa do it but no one else? They have some super secret formula to success? Ohh wait I know... are we going to the luck card yet again? It's amazing how fortunate other teams are compared to Milwaukee. I mean my goodness it's all right there.. starting pitching > hitting > bullpen > closers. Why are closers the least valuable? Because they the most overpaid relative to their production. Yes let's take our best reliever, pitch him the least amount of innings, and only pitch him when the situation is dictated by certain arbitrary parameters. If you look at the deals Friedman made, he traded laterally for better upside or he traded up in value. When you look at the moves Melvin made, he tends to trade down in value. That's why we are where we are, it's not bad luck, it's a bad philosophy towards team building.

 

Crew07,

 

People have pointed out the flaws in your reasoning a number of times.

So much of your argument fails because it is incapable of knowing what

Melvin was offered for the pieces you list. You continually bring up

Marcum from Toronto without having any knowledge of whether Toronto

made him available to the Brewers. You just aren't capable of stating

such things as objective truth, it isn't that simple.

I'm not sure what part of IMPACT PITCHING is so confusing. But sure, you're right and I'm wrong. How do you know Marcum couldn't have been had, we couldn't have gotten a different return for Lee, or we couldn't have done better for the franchise focusing our prospects elsewhere? How do you really know anything more than I do? Furthermore I use Marcum as a for instance, not a point of fact. I've clearly said multiple times that we only needed 1 or 2 impact arms acquired along the way and the situation would have been totally different for the MLB team. It didn't matter to me what deal or how it would have happened, the simple truth is that nothing has happened on the impact pitching front since 2003, not one move. I've listed all of the players I would have been willing to trade, the players I would be willing to trade, I highly doubt you feel the same way. Most of your defense of is based on the idea that if Melvin could have done better he would have done better, where's the proof of that anywhere in his history as a GM?

 

Isn't Milwaukee in the exact same place today that Texas was when he was fired? Has he adapted his core philosophy at all over time? Didn't he just follow the exact same pattern with Wolf and Davis and he did with Suppan and Looper? Wasn't Hoffman a repeat of Gagne? Hawkins a repeat of Riske? I'm not talking about their ultimate production or injuries, I'm talking about best case scenario production and theory.... the value of spending so much money for so few potential wins. This doesn't take much work... look at the leader-boards to find the most productive relievers, go to fangraphs and find their WAR, then go to Cots and see how much money they make, then divide their salary by their total WAR. Then do the same thing for starting pitching, then the hitting, and then hopefully you'll understand what I've been talking about. Ultimately hitters are better value, but pitching wins championships which is why the focus has to start there, because the Brewers can't afford to buy impact pitching, and we've never had enough of it, so we either have to draft it or trade for it.

 

My points haven't been refuted at all, they've been talked around and repeatedly argued sideways, I've been talking about value in trades and FA for years, and it's same tired replies every single time. If you don't think pitching was the answer then fine, give me a different plan that would have worked better, give me a different solution to the current problem, but don't try to convince me that this was the only the possible way the dominoes could fall, because that's a completely unrealistic notion. Melvin could have gone a different way with every single deal including Sabathia, fate didn't lead us down this path, Doug Melvin did.

[giffted1]

Philly had a great offense for years and didn't win anything until they

got pitching, Texas and Detroit had great offenses in 2008 but didn't

win anything, we had a great offense last year and didn't win, Colorado

had a great offense for years and didn't win anything, etc, etc, etc.

 

Go back as far you want looking at who wins in the post season, it's incredibly obvious what it takes. I think many people think that spending the most money we can to get the best player we can afford in FA is good value, when nothing could be further from the truth. FA pitching is the worst possible value in all of baseball, with spending on the bullpen being the absolute worst way to spend money. To compete with the big boys your pitching has to match up, they can buy FA impact pitching, we aren't able to afford anything more than Wolf or Suppan in FA and simply put those guys just don't match up. The Twins still haven't caught on to this, they always have just enough pitching, but never enough to truly compete for a WS.

Just wrong. It took no more than 5 minutes to find some teams that recently had success without the best pitching. Here the league rankings in runs against for some recent World Series winners.

 

2009 Yankess - 14th

2006 Cardinals - 10th

2004 Red Sox - 14th

2003 Marlins - 8th

 

It's also funny that you brought up the Phillies pitching. In 2008 their team ERA was 3.88, the Brewers was 3.85.

[lcbj68c]

In 2009, the Yankees were 6th in runs allowed in the AL (13 more than 4th)

In 2006, the Cardinals were 5th in the NL in runs allowed.

In 2004, the Red Sox were 4th in the AL in runs allowed.

In 2003, the Marlins were 6th in the NL in runs allowed. (9 more than 4th).

 

In general, If the top 4 teams make the playoffs, I wouldn't stand to complain if you have a top 4-6 staff in runs allowed (the metric you used).

[giffted1]

In 2009, the Yankees were 6th in runs allowed in the AL (13 more than 4th)

In 2006, the Cardinals were 5th in the NL in runs allowed.

In 2004, the Red Sox were 4th in the AL in runs allowed.

In 2003, the Marlins were 6th in the NL in runs allowed. (9 more than 4th).

 

In general, If the top 4 teams make the playoffs, I wouldn't stand to complain if you have a top 4-6 staff in runs allowed (the metric you used).

Just for comparison's sake: the 2005 Brewers were 6th in the NL in runs allowed, and the 2008 Brewers were 4th in the NL in runs allowed.

 

It's incredibly obvious that the key to winning in the post season isn't pitching, pitching, pitching. Its some combination of pitching, hitting, and luck.

[lcbj68c]

Just for comparison's sake: the 2005 Brewers were 6th in the NL in runs allowed, and the 2008 Brewers were 4th in the NL in runs allowed.

It's incredibly obvious that the key to winning in the post season isn't pitching, pitching, pitching. Its some combination of pitching, hitting, and luck.

 

I don't doubt that, except for the luck part and it's not just pitching, pitching, pitching...it's IMPACT PITCHING, per TheCrew07.

In 2005, the Brewers went 81 -81 with that 6th in the NL in runs allowed. Considering where the franchise was at in 2005, I was very excited about that development.

[sveumrules]

Pitching wins championships and the Braves won one in fifteen tries with the big three.

 

Look at first round over the last ten years and how many flameouts there are. Mike Jones was drafted ten years ago and still hasn't thrown a pitch in the bigs. And guess what? Neither have ten of the other nineteen hurlers picked in the first round that year.

 

Has Melvin tried to acquire pitching? Certainly. Has it worked? Certainly not. How much of that blame we can assign to Doug, Jack Z, luck and/or various pitching coaches/scouts in the organization is impossible to determine.

[lcbj68c]

Here's an interesting question that I have no knowledge of...was Texas justified in firing Doug Melvin?

[sveumrules]

Another question along those same lines would be how long after his firing did it take them to get back to being a competitive MLB franchise ?

[EdgarDiazRocks]

I'm not sure what part of IMPACT PITCHING is so confusing.

I don't know about everybody else, but I'm confused on how you think it's so EASY to aquire and develop. There are 30 other teams (and the Pirates) and all of them covet first and most high velocity starters and even then the failure rate for those pitchers is high. Just look at one that COULD have been obtained in the Lee deal, Edison Volquez. Boom goes the dynamite. Risk is inherent with young pitching.

 

It's not like Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez developed overnight. anf King Felix WAS pretty quick.

 

Look at me, now I'm kinda defending TINSTAAPP. Black is white.

[lcbj68c]

Another question along those same lines would be how long after his firing did it take them to get back to being a competitive MLB franchise.

 

They seem to have been hampered for some time by the decisions he made. In the 5 years Post-Melvin, they only won more than 80 games once and that was when they won 89 games and still finished 3rd in the division.

[EdgarDiazRocks]

Here's an interesting question that I have no knowledge of...was Texas justified in firing Doug Melvin?

There was a parting of the ways in philosophy between he and owner Tom Hicks over the Alex Rodriguez signing, then Boras' influence over the team drafting his client Vince Sinisi and his $2 Mil signing bonus in the 2nd rd, none of which Melvin wanted.

 

He certainly had done little wrong before that. Except lose to the Yankees in the playoffs.

 

[strawbossisevil]

TheCrew07,

 

The Brewers would need to trade bluechip players in order to get Impact Arms (Garza is a perfect example, the Rays only got him by trading a guy who most expected to put up Braun-type numbers every season). So we are talking about trading players like Braun or Fielder. You don't get impact arms for the Harts and Hardy's of the world. That's unrealistic. Very few teams get impact arms in trades, the amount of times it happens is extremely limited. And even when the trades are made, those pitchers still do have a high flameout rate. Impact arms have to come from inside of the system most of the time, with only a few rare exceptions. You can point to TB all you want, but the moves they made are the exception rather than the rule of how most moves are made in the MLB, and in fact this is becoming even more true as currently young pitching is even more highly valued than it was 5 years ago.

 

On top of that, it's easy to deride certain players now that you know how things turned out, but Capellan was a very highly regarded prospect, someone who was seen as being a top of the rotation starter, an impact arm. Not only by the Brewers but by Baseball America, one of the most respected independent scouting groups in all of baseball. And calling Kolb washed up when we traded him was far from the truth, he had a great year before the trade, and didn't begin his huge downslide until he arrived in Atlanta. Capellan was rated as high as Ryan Braun was by Baseball America in 2006, and three spots higher than the Devil Ray's Jackson if that gives you any idea as to how highly he was considered around the baseball community at the time of the trade. Baseball Notebook, another respected scouting source, had him as the top SP prospect in the NL (http://www.baseballnotebo...spects%20NL%20Pitchers). Your idea that he wasn't an impact arm is completely unfounded, he was pretty much universally recognized as just that.

 

And I'll add this, I remember not all that long ago the days of Ben Sheets and the horrible Brewers offense. How, early in his career, despite putting up great numbers, Sheets often lost more games than he won. I remember the ridiculous discussions about how he wasn't an ace because he didn't win games. The problem, however, wasn't with Ben, it was that our team had a horrible offense. Good pitching with a horrible offense is going to struggle to win games just as much as a good offense struggles to win games with horrible pitching. You need a combination of both to succeed. The Brewers have the above average offense, and they are currently in the process of developing the pitching side of things (much like the Phillies did in your illustration). Hopefully around 2012 or so, the combination of pitching prospects and our potent offense will yield the success we are all hoping for. And hopefully trading Fielder will bring in an impact arm who will be able to help in that reconstruction of the rotation.

 

I think our team is going to be in very, very good shape going into 2012 and 2013 and we should see another run during that time period before we once again have to go into rebuilding mode. I think things will go cyclically for the Brewers as they bounce back and forth between needing pitching and hitting, with the times of real success being the occasional year where both come together at the same time.

Also, in regard to all of these deals that you have come up with that you seem to think would have made better sense for the Brewers to go with. The burden of proof is on you to prove that these deals would have been available to the Brewers. Acting as if these players being available can be an objective part of an argument without any proof is comical.

[paul253]

So we are talking about trading players like Braun or Fielder.

 

Well we are going to trade Fielder so he'll have his shot. I think he's had his shot before but chose to go in other directions when he traded Sexson and Lee. Now knowing that he's probably going to have to trade Fielder, are you confident that he'll bring in a good return for him? Based on his history of trades involving our marquee guys (Sexson, Lee, and to a lesser extent Overbay and Hardy), I am not.

[strawbossisevil]

Lee was good, but no where near the talent of Fielder, plus wasn't Lee traded with only half a year left? That would diminish his value quite a bit (versus trading Fielder with a year and a half, or one year left).

 

The Sexson trade happened at a different time for the Brewers, where they needed quantity. Despite that, in the trade they pulled in a #2 starter (Capuano) and a guy who projected to be a top of the rotation type pitcher (unfortunately JDLR took a number of years to reach that potential), a 2nd baseman who played in the All Star game the previous year, and a solid backup SS.

 

If the Brewers get a #2 starter and a top of the rotation prospect out of the Fielder trade I think that would be an excellent return. And hopefully the Brewers would have better luck with the prospect this time around reaching his potential in a timely manner.

 

I'm still surprised that you are bagging on the Hardy trade Paul. We weren't ever going to get a good pitching prospect for him, not after he tanked last year. But, despite that, we went out and got an elite fielding CF, who currently has an OPS over .800. When you look at how Hardy has done this year, it's looking like we clearly won that trade in a big way, and he is going to be a huge help to our pitching staff going forward with his incredible range in CF.

 

The Overbay trade, I feel was somewhat of a disappointment in how it played out, but I liked it in theory. Bush was a solid #3/4, which is probably not a horrible return for a league average 1st baseman (Overbay is overrated by most Brewer fans). Zach Jackson was profiled as being a guy with a ceiling of a #2/3, he just never panned out. With Bush's injury and Jackson's ineffectiveness, the Brewers probably came out on the losing end of this one, but I don't think we could have gotten much more for Overbay as far as ceiling of players was concerned.

[TooLiveBrew]

There are 30 other teams (and the Pirates)

 

This almost got me to snort. Very nice.

[sheethead]

There are 28 other teams, and the Pirates.

[sheethead]

Someone mentioned wins when looking at Melvin's results the last five years. After this year the results are going to look below average, rather than just average.

[zzzmanwitz]

After this year the results are going to look below average, rather than just average.

 

You know the Brewers ending record already?