Brewers pitching development plan (also, curse you Roy Halladay!)

[bullox]

X ellence wrote:

Who was the good pitcher he traded for that was a longterm solution?

Assuming you missed the part of the article where 24 top pitchers had no trade clauses for Milwaukee in their contracts.

[biedergb]

Re: Trading for pitchers - it's hard to trade for pitching. To get a MLB ready pitcher, you need a lot of prospects and usually a near MLB ready pitcher to send back. Or you trade for a prospect (like Garza) which means giving up a higher end prospect (like Delmon Young a top10 prospect list guy for many years). Melvin track history has been to hold on to positional prospects since they are guys who can play in 160 games a year.

 

Re: this line in the article "Ash offered an example of a "fairly high" pick from the 2010 Draft. The player underwent his physical exam on a Thursday that included a biomechanical analysis, which raised some red flags". Any ideas? Tyler Thornburg hasn't pitched in some time and his mechanics were compared to Lincecum, which obviously is herky-jerky.

[biedergb]

Not to double post -- but this is an article with lots of talking points. One question is about the patience part. I remember a few years ago talking about elite pitching talent (ie, #1-#2 starters on playoff teams) and that most of them progress through the minors quickly, that a high percentage were in the majors by age 22-23, and many starting well by age 24-25. Now a few years later, things continue to change/evolve. Keeping guys in the minors a little longer has obvious financial implications (delays arby and FA years), and guys are having and recovering from major arm surgeries at higher rates. I know that a few team examples were given (SF/TB and Tex) and they are on opposite ends of this. ANy thoughts on this. Are the real true aces more like the traditional starts (ie like Gallardo) who are in the majors early and successful early? Or is the newer trend for guys who appear a little later (due to injury, development or team preferences)?

[bill hAll Star]

Re: Trading for pitchers - it's hard to trade for pitching. To get a MLB ready pitcher, you need a lot of prospects and usually a near MLB ready pitcher to send back. Or you trade for a prospect (like Garza) which means giving up a higher end prospect (like Delmon Young a top10 prospect list guy for many years). Melvin track history has been to hold on to positional prospects since they are guys who can play in 160 games a year.

 

Re: this line in the article "Ash offered an example of a "fairly high" pick from the 2010 Draft. The player underwent his physical exam on a Thursday that included a biomechanical analysis, which raised some red flags". Any ideas? Tyler Thornburg hasn't pitched in some time and his mechanics were compared to Lincecum, which obviously is herky-jerky.

Yeah, I think the best way to do things when the Brewers knew their minor league pitching was a bit bare would be to trade their batting prospects and/or established bats for some young pitching. I just think Doug didn't have the patience. He thought we were almost there and just needed more pitching. Little did he know, he was signing negative value pitchers. Did they underwhelm to what he wanted? Yes, but the risk/reward with the Soup/Loop/Wolf signings isn't good.

 

Here is my pitching plan, and it doesn't need to be 30 pages:

1. Trade whatever you can for some high ceiling pitchers. If it has to be Prince, then it has to be. If it has to be Lawrie, choose carefully, but do it.

 

2. Use that money you wasted on overpriced MLB starters for bats to fill the holes. Reliable bats are much less of a risk and cost less than filling up your rotation.

 

3. When you need to sign a pitcher, sign a guy with some stuff that has some baggage. Risk/reward there is much better. If I was GM, I probably would have struck out with Rich Harden this year, outbidding Texas' one year offer. But I think I would have hit the jackpot on a 1 or 2 year deal for Javier Vazquez last season. Sign these low risk/high reward guys to 1-2 year deals, depending on cost. Either you easily cut ties after he has injury or control issues or he throws like an ace. You can use that unsignable ace as trade bait then while you reap the rewards of his excellent pitching.

 

To my #3, what is the risk/reward of a Suppan or Wolf? The reward is they pitch like a #2 or #3 that can take the ball every day. Probably #3 or #4 ceiling if you include their style compared to our ballpark and defense we're giving them. The risk is you've got a small-market anchor contract.

 

Risk/reward of a Harden or Vazquez of last year is you've got an ace. Risk is they have injury issues again (Harden) or just don't find their stuff. Easy solution, though, since they came with baggage and either signed for high $ but 1 year or they signed a fairly low $ 2 year deal because of that baggage.

[Never Outhustled]

X ellence wrote:

Who was the good pitcher he traded for that was a longterm solution?

Assuming you missed the part of the article where 24 top pitchers had no trade clauses for Milwaukee in their contracts.

 

Sure, but why not deal for an emerging guy that didn't get his no-trade deal yet?

[Never Outhustled]

Re: this line in the article "Ash offered an example of a "fairly high" pick from the 2010 Draft. The player underwent his physical exam on a Thursday that included a biomechanical analysis, which raised some red flags". Any ideas?

 

I'll say 7th rounder Austin Ross or 11th rounder Greg Holle, as niether has pitched yet. It sounded like the analysis is part of the physical, which players take upon signing, so it would be someone who hadn't pitched.

[1992casey]

I had a nice response to that all typed up, and then i lost it somehow.

 

Using the preview function is good insurance against completely losing your message. You should be able to get to your last previewed "draft" via the back button or your browser history. I'll hit the preview button frequently when composing a message that's of any significant length.

[biedergb]

Re: this line in the article "Ash offered an example of a "fairly high" pick from the 2010 Draft. The player underwent his physical exam on a Thursday that included a biomechanical analysis, which raised some red flags". Any ideas?

 

I'll say 7th rounder Austin Ross or 11th rounder Greg Holle, as niether has pitched yet. It sounded like the analysis is part of the physical, which players take upon signing, so it would be someone who hadn't pitched.

7th rounder Joel Pierce has not signed but is pitching for the Canadian Jr Team. But both 8th rounder Austin Ross (known in milb.com land as Cody Ross for a while) and Greg Holle have signed, and both pitched, Ross with Helena and Holle for AZL Baby Brewers (his first action was initially credited to Brooks Hall). Miller has been pitching well, and Nelson and Thornburg have pitched, but maybe not in a while. White, Bates and Morris are officially unsigned, and could be undergoing physicals and approval of contracts?

[Menace II Sobriety]

3. When you need to sign a pitcher, sign a guy with some stuff that has some baggage. Risk/reward there is much better. If I was GM, I probably would have struck out with Rich Harden this year, outbidding Texas' one year offer. But I think I would have hit the jackpot on a 1 or 2 year deal for Javier Vazquez last season. Sign these low risk/high reward guys to 1-2 year deals, depending on cost. Either you easily cut ties after he has injury or control issues or he throws like an ace. You can use that unsignable ace as trade bait then while you reap the rewards of his excellent pitching.

 

To my #3, what is the risk/reward of a Suppan or Wolf? The reward is they pitch like a #2 or #3 that can take the ball every day. Probably #3 or #4 ceiling if you include their style compared to our ballpark and defense we're giving them. The risk is you've got a small-market anchor contract.

 

Risk/reward of a Harden or Vazquez of last year is you've got an ace. Risk is they have injury issues again (Harden) or just don't find their stuff. Easy solution, though, since they came with baggage and either signed for high $ but 1 year or they signed a fairly low $ 2 year deal because of that baggage.

I see you are a fan of the Eric Gagne method where a player gets payed $10 MM a year to go golfing, This is also known as the Ben Sheets style to free agency.

 

 

(pared back quoted material --1992)

[Thurston Fluff]

Melvin's little presentation was somewhere between a desperate GM begging to save his job & raising the white flag (on past pitcher non-development)

 

Funny how people can look at the same thing and see two completely different things. I see a guy who is implementing a long term plan to fix a problem. I don't know of many people in any profession who take the long view without some amount of job security. If he was really desperate to save his job he'd be doing patch work stuff not implementing systemic changes that only helps in the long term. As far as raising the white flag on past failure a good test of any manager in any profession is seeing your own weaknesses admitting them for what they are and fixing them. I am much more comfortable with a guy who knows he had shortcomings and takes a serious approach to fixing them than someone like Sal Bando who came up with excuses then went out and made the same mistakes over again.

 

 

Sure, but why not deal for an emerging guy that didn't get his no-trade deal yet?

 

Like Dave Bush or Chris Cappuano? Yes he should do such and has. There are a lot of that type of pitchers to be had how many top flight young pitchers are out there to be had? Teams just don't trade Gallardo type prospects very often. When they do there is a lot of competition for them which means someone overpays thus making the trade less beneficial. We have a wonderful chance this winter to get one of those types this winter for Prince. If we can get one top flight pitcher for him I'd be ecstatic. It would bridge the gap somewhat until the system they are implementing starts to work.

[logan82]

I think they implemented the system a few years back already. You see it in how they have drafted over the last 3 years.

[davego]

Not adding anything other then what an interesting article and comments. I love this part of BF.

[adambr2]

Am I the only one disturbed that Melvin basically admits that he tried to sell the farm for one year of Roy Halladay? You've got to assume Lawrie was included in that deal. Who knows who else? Halladay and Gallardo at the top of the rotation would have been nice for 2010, but not enough, and then what?

 

I'm very relieved Halladay blocked it. I really don't want Melvin around to try to make any more moves like that.

[Ennder]

This article would make a really good rorschach test given the various responses to it.

[BrewCrewForever]

We have some pretty good young arms in the minors right now. But they probably won't be here until 2012. Odorizzi, Heckathorn, Bucci, Peralta, Rivas and Jeffress.

[bill hAll Star]

I see you are a fan of the Eric Gagne method where a player gets payed $10 MM a year to go golfing, This is also known as the Ben Sheets style to free agency.

 

 

(pared back quoted material --1992)

There is a risk when you sign any pitching. A guy with the ceiling of an all star that could blow out his arm for 1 year, $5-10 million is a much better option to seeing a guy signed for 3 or 4 years, 30-40 million that your risk/reward is he is either a solid #3 or he's throwing batting practice for 10 mil a year.

 

Sheets' injury time for the A's was unfortunate as it seemed they were strictly signing him for prospects depending on their position at the break. Or the compensation picks if he was an ace for them as a successful team. I realize he wasn't having a GREAT year by any means, but this is the way I'd operate most of the time. You can't fill your entire staff with them but this would be the main thing I'd look into. Again, I'd rather take that guy that could throw ace-like stuff but you may see him conk out 2/3 of the way through the year. I prefer that to locking in for 3 years to a guy that doesn't have great stuff.

 

Which signing was worse? Gagne or Suppan/Wolf? Personally, most of the time I talk about the Gagne move to somebody it's just a chuckle. "Yeah, that was a bad one." It wasn't a great risk but he was putting up all-star numbers before a public meltdown in Boston that nobody would have known about if it wasn't on the big stage. When you bring up Suppan, obviously, the person you're talking to gets red in the face and angry. As for Wolf, he's not on Suppan level yet, but he's getting there.

[Menace II Sobriety]

bill hAll Star]

I see you are a fan of the Eric Gagne method where a player gets payed $10 MM a year to go golfing, This is also known as the Ben Sheets style to free agency.

There is a risk when you sign any pitching. A guy with the ceiling of an all star that could blow out his arm for 1 year, $5-10 million is a much better option to seeing a guy signed for 3 or 4 years, 30-40 million that your risk/reward is he is either a solid #3 or he's throwing batting practice for 10 mil a year.

 

Which signing was worse? Gagne or Suppan/Wolf? Personally, most of the time I talk about the Gagne move to somebody it's just a chuckle. "Yeah, that was a bad one." It wasn't a great risk but he was putting up all-star numbers before a public meltdown in Boston that nobody would have known about if it wasn't on the big stage. When you bring up Suppan, obviously, the person you're talking to gets red in the face and angry. As for Wolf, he's not on Suppan level yet, but he's getting there.

 

(cleaned up code --1992)

So it is your contention that you can sign an all-star caliber pitcher for 1 year at 5-10 MM, but you cannot get one at 3-4 years at 30-40 MM. I know what you are getting at but the logic is wrong. If a player has that great of an upside someone will outbid the Brewers to get them or they will chose to go to a more favorable location.

 

I think it would be a fun survey to see how many MLB locations are less favorable to play in than Milwaukee. I love the city but come on if you are a 20 something year old MLB player your first chose would not be Milwaukee. I can think of 5 off of the top of my head.

 

1) Kansas City

2) Cleveland

3) Detroit

4) Cincinatti

5) Pittsburgh

 

 

And these are all debatable. Milwaukee may be a great town for the older players with wives looking to finish their careers, but it is not Chicago, Denver or even St. Louis.

[bill hAll Star]

I see you are a fan of the Eric Gagne method where a player gets payed $10 MM a year to go golfing, This is also known as the Ben Sheets style to free agency.

There is a risk when you sign any pitching. A guy with the ceiling of an all star that could blow out his arm for 1 year, $5-10 million is a much better option to seeing a guy signed for 3 or 4 years, 30-40 million that your risk/reward is he is either a solid #3 or he's throwing batting practice for 10 mil a year.

 

Which signing was worse? Gagne or Suppan/Wolf? Personally, most of the time I talk about the Gagne move to somebody it's just a chuckle. "Yeah, that was a bad one." It wasn't a great risk but he was putting up all-star numbers before a public meltdown in Boston that nobody would have known about if it wasn't on the big stage. When you bring up Suppan, obviously, the person you're talking to gets red in the face and angry. As for Wolf, he's not on Suppan level yet, but he's getting there.

 

(cleaned up code --1992)

So it is your contention that you can sign an all-star caliber pitcher for 1 year at 5-10 MM, but you cannot get one at 3-4 years at 30-40 MM. I know what you are getting at but the logic is wrong. If a player has that great of an upside someone will outbid the Brewers to get them or they will chose to go to a more favorable location.

 

I think it would be a fun survey to see how many MLB locations are less favorable to play in than Milwaukee. I love the city but come on if you are a 20 something year old MLB player your first chose would not be Milwaukee. I can think of 5 off of the top of my head.

 

1) Kansas City

2) Cleveland

3) Detroit

4) Cincinatti

5) Pittsburgh

 

 

And these are all debatable. Milwaukee may be a great town for the older players with wives looking to finish their careers, but it is not Chicago, Denver or even St. Louis.

No, but nobody is even going to bother offering Sheets and the like 3 or 4 years. They're injury prone or a jaded starter. They aren't a guy coming off a hot season where he was assisted by his ballpark where his value has to drive up.

 

Sure, if St. Louis offered a guy 1 year, 5 million...the Brewers can come in and ask 1 year, 8 million or something. I'm fine with that.

 

As long as we aren't playing the other small market angle where we outbid ourselves with Soup and Wolf. I'm pretty sure most were offering Wolf 2 years, 15-20 million-ish and for us to get him we outbid all with the 3 year, 27 million dollar bid. Those linger for way too long.

[Menace II Sobriety]

No, but nobody is even going to bother offering Sheets and the like 3 or 4 years. They're injury prone or a jaded starter. They aren't a guy coming off a hot season where he was assisted by his ballpark where his value has to drive up.

 

Sure, if St. Louis offered a guy 1 year, 5 million...the Brewers can come in and ask 1 year, 8 million or something. I'm fine with that.

 

As long as we aren't playing the other small market angle where we outbid ourselves with Soup and Wolf. I'm pretty sure most were offering Wolf 2 years, 15-20 million-ish and for us to get him we outbid all with the 3 year, 27 million dollar bid. Those linger for way too long.

I still don't get it. You want to overpay pitchers to come to Milwaukee but don't want to tack on extra years. So you say that the Crew only got Wolf because they payed the 3rd year at about the same salary he was offered for two years from other clubs. This means that you would rather pay Wolf 2/23 or 24MM than 3/27 to get him to come to Milwaukee.

 

Sheets is a non-topic, there is no way he was coming back to Milwaukee and to pay him 10MM this year would have been a non-starter.

[1992casey]

bill hAll Star and Menace II Sobriety, please review the quote guidelines. Thanks!

[MNBrew]

A little earlier in the discussion, Looper was being put in the same classification as Suppan & Wolf. Looper of '09 = Davis of '10: late FA signing, one-year commitment, ~$5M.

 

Looper wasn't an early FA-season signing at all. He had a respectable track record but probably wasn't going to be stellar. He wasn't super-cheap, but he was hardly a bank-breaker at $5M for ONE year + a pretty reasonable (i.e., non-painful) buyout. The Brewers didn't pursue him during November/December '08 like they did Suppan & Wolf in the off-seasons surrounding '08. And the contracts aren't remotely comparable.

 

Sorry, but lumping Looper in the same problematic pile as Suppan and (I think only potentially at this point) Wolf really didn't sit well.

 

. . . . .

 

On a totally different edge of the discussion, for my 2¢, I think that...

 

1. the notion that Melvin's articulation of some of the Organizational Approach to Developing Pitching (or whatever the heck the title is) as being a desperation PR move is sheer nonsense; and that

 

2. the idea of acquiring Roy Halladay, for example, is the exact sort of move Melvin has to pursue. But on a prospects-loving fan website like BF.net, it doesn't surprise me to hear folks rip that like it's the ultimate in stupidity. Heck, it was a Sabathia-like move, but for an entire season. So why exactly is that stupid? The whole point Melvin was making on that note in McCalvy's article is that a trade seems to be one of the only ways the Brewers are going to land a stud pitcher like Halladay other than if they can develop those guys in their own system. So Melvin made a strong play. But the Brewers lost out on Halladay anyway. That leads to my next point...

 

3. Melvin's an excellent GM. No, I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid. So many are blasting him for not bringing in top-flight pitchers. What he was saying -- and what he's said all along -- is that those are the types of guys he DOES make plays for. But it's not a Utopian landscape and the odds are NOT in Milwaukee's favor to land such players most of the time for a variety of reasons -- which means that the failure of the Brewers to land those guys, realistically, is pretty much never the fault of the GM. On the trade side of the coin, unless you're advocating a total rebuild and take anything any other GM offers you for your proven ML talent, you have to insist on comparable value in return in any deal. That's exactly what Melvin has been aiming for. But IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO. If no other GM wants to give you comparable value, do you make a deal anyway just to say you did so? You do that and the other half of the BF.net (and other uber-informed-fan) population revolts because you gave away great assets for guys who may or may never develop, and in the meantime you end up fielding a 25-man roster, half of which, talent-wise, has no business being anywhere above AAA ball. We've lived through those years over the past decade and we need to keep those types of seasons as distant a memory as possible.

 

4. The analogy of the whack-a-mole approach is very appropriate, and much of what Melvin's point seems to be is that now the Brewers simply have a clearly articulated system in writing that can be easily followed throughout every level of the system. And the focuses & philosophies are based on what have made certain players and other organizations successful. Heck, there's so little out there in baseball that's truly new & revolutionary anymore. So the key to any prolonged success must lie in a sound approach with good coaches/teachers to implement a solid, sensible system with the talented pitchers you're trying to develop. If you have a good & clear blueprint, you're simply doing all you can to consistently reduce the failure rate.

 

....Especially w/ the recent & relative dearth of upper-level pitching talent in the system, only time will tell if Melvin & Co. have gotten it right. That said, the main thing to expect is that turning around the organization's success rate w/ developing quality pitchers is not an instantaneous thing.

[thebruce44]

Sheets' injury time for the A's was unfortunate as it seemed they were strictly signing him for prospects depending on their position at the break. Or the compensation picks if he was an ace for them as a successful team. I realize he wasn't having a GREAT year by any means, but this is the way I'd operate most of the time. You can't fill your entire staff with them but this would be the main thing I'd look into. Again, I'd rather take that guy that could throw ace-like stuff but you may see him conk out 2/3 of the way through the year. I prefer that to locking in for 3 years to a guy that doesn't have great stuff.

Since the Brewers needed 2 starters and had under $10 mil to work with for their payroll, I am not sure what you realistically wanted Doug to do. They were able to get Davis on the cheap for 1 year, and went to 3 years with Wolf while only giving him $4 mil this year while they get Hall, Looper, and Weather's dead weight off the books.

 

Also, the A's weren't signing Sheets for compensation picks. His contract actually specifies that if he was a TypeA, they wouldn't be allowed to offer him arbitration.

[LouisEly]

1. Trade whatever you can for some high ceiling pitchers. If it has to be Prince, then it has to be.

 

And what if those high-ceiling pitchers get hurt - then where are you? The differences between SF/TB and most of the rest of the league is that the pitchers they drafted for the most part haven't gotten hurt. Contrast that to Mark Rogers, Mike Jones, and Jeffress (mental injury).

 

The other difference is that SF and TB had years where they had very high draft picks in good draft years. With the exception of 2007 - when the Brewers should have drafted Bumgarner instead of LaPorta - the years the Brewers had high picks the talent level and pitching was very lean. In 2003 only two pitchers picked after Weeks in the first round could be considered as good - Danks and Billingsley. And no one had Billingsley that high. Only one pitcher taken after Fielder in 2002 would be considered as good as him - Cain. Believe it or not, Jered Weaver is the only pitcher taken after Rogers in 2004 that has more potential - but again, it was luck because Rogers got hurt. As for 2005, Ricky Romero is starting to show his promise as the only pitcher as good as Braun. In 2006 the Giants had the luck of drafting at #10 to get Lincecum (and the Rays #3 to get Longoria) where the Brewers got Jeffress; the only pitcher taken after Jeffress in the first or 2nd that has more potential/success is Trevor Cahill in the 2nd round.

 

As for the Rays... it took them 10 years of top 5 drafts to get where they are. Is that what you want?

[adambr2]

2. the idea of acquiring Roy Halladay, for example, is the exact sort of move Melvin has to pursue. But on a prospects-loving fan website like BF.net, it doesn't surprise me to hear folks rip that like it's the ultimate in stupidity. Heck, it was a Sabathia-like move, but for an entire season. So why exactly is that stupid? The whole point Melvin was making on that note in McCalvy's article is that a trade seems to be one of the only ways the Brewers are going to land a stud pitcher like Halladay other than if they can develop those guys in their own system. So Melvin made a strong play. But the Brewers lost out on Halladay anyway.

 

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I could not possibly disagree with this more. Selling our entire farm for a guy like Halladay is the exact sort of move Melvin has to pursue? Seems to me like it's the exact sort of move that can bury our franchise for the next 5 years. So if that trade had gone through, we are around what, maybe around a .500 team this year? Then we're down a few top 10 prospects including probably some pitching prospects, and things are looking mighty bleak at the moment. The reason BF.net values prospects very highly is because of how important it is for a team like the Brewers to have their players succeed in their first 6 cost-controlled years.

 

Also, the Sabathia situation was very different. We were a top NL team at the time looking for the extra pennant push. I'm not saying there isn't situations for these kinds of things to happen, but for a franchise like the Brewers, it has to be the exception, not the rule. We are not a team structured that can afford to cough up our top prospects every couple of years for the top rent-a-pitcher on the market. The Yankees can afford to do that. Not us.

 

Do you see teams like the Rays, Twins, and Marlins unloading their farms for the top pitcher on the trade block? No, because they develop their own top pitchers. We have to as well, there isn't any other option, and I think they are beginning to realize that.

[logan82]

I think they are beginning to realize that.

 

They realized that by at least the 2008 draft. At the very least they realized their current way of developing pitchers was flawed in 2008. That is when there was a definite shift in drafting philosophy.