Melvin as GM

[LouisEly]

I look at the big picture. Doug Melvin inherited this ML team and this minor league system and in six years turned it into this and this, and now this and this. Take a real good look at those rosters.

 

Yes, they have regressed a little bit the last two years. Not Melvin's fault that Sheets got hurt and they couldn't get draft picks for his departure. Not Melvin's fault that the screwey FA system meant they got a 2nd instead of a 1st when Sabathia left. Melvin made a significant play for Sabathia, a true #1 ace, but not his fault the Yankees could risk more years on the deal. Not Melvin's fault that a lot of pitchers have MKE included in their no-trade clauses. Not Melvin's fault that a lot of players don't want to come here as FAs. Not Melvin's fault that Rogers got hurt and Jeffress chose to smoke weed; maybe they could have done more due diligence on Jeffress but ultimately Jeffress chose his actions. Let's also remember - Melvin put his foot down and overruled Jack Z and drafted Gallardo. Where would this organization be if Melvin hadn't done that? And speaking of Gallardo, not Melvin's fault that some bozo from the Cubs chose to slide into first base wrecking Gallardo's knee in 2008, possibly costing MKE home field advantage in the playoffs.

 

Yes, Melvin has missed on some trades and FA signings. Every GM has. Because Sabathia turned down Melvin's offer (and because many pitchers have MKE on their no-trade clause list) he had to seek out the Braden Loopers and the Randy Wolfs. But look at the entire body of work. Look at where the organization was in the fall of 2002 and where they are now. I give him a solid "B" grade. A few too many mistakes for an "A", but overall a very good job.

 

[endaround]

You can't judge a GM bad his transactions only. What about the moves he didn't make? His biggest failure as a GM is the fact that he hasn't traded for a pitcher in over 2 years.

 

A GM with this much tenure should be judged by his record, not his moves. His record is bad.

And if Halladay would have waived his no-trade to come to Milwaukee we would have traded for the best pitcher in baseball.

[LouisEly]

Good: Sexson trade. Villanueva for Wayne Franklin. Koskie for Brian Wolfe. Shouse for Cruz. Lee for Pods and Vizcaino. Torres trade. Sabathia trade. Signing Cameron, Braun and Gallardo extensions.

 

Bad: De la Rosa for Graffanino. Davis, Eveland and Krynzel for Estrada, Aquino and Vargas. Lee and Cruz for Cordero, Mench and Nix. Mercedes and Gillespie for Lopez. Hardy for Gomez. Suppan, Riske, Hall, Kendall, Gagne, Hoffman, Hawkins and Wolf signings.

As a side note on the Sabathia trade, has anyone else noticed that LaPorta now has over 100 more career PAs that Joey Meyer ever was given, and Meyer has a better career OPS than LaPorta so far? Meyer's 1988 is very comparable to LaPorta's 2010, and Meyer was only one year older in 1988 than LaPorta in 2010. Brantley is still young, but his career OBP after 430 PAs is .309. And Bryson just got into AA; his 0.73 GO/AO this year takes some of the shine off of his numbers this year. Kentrail Davis may turn out to be better than any of those guys, making the Sabathia rental practically free.

 

Speaking of the Shouse trade, let's not forget the comp pick they got for letting him go - Kyle Heckathorn.

[LouisEly]

You can't judge a GM bad his transactions only. What about the moves he didn't make? His biggest failure as a GM is the fact that he hasn't traded for a pitcher in over 2 years.

 

A GM with this much tenure should be judged by his record, not his moves. His record is bad.

Let's also not forget that Jake Peavey supposedly waived his no-trade clause to come to MKE but injured his ankle right before the deal was finalized, nixing the trade.

[homer]

And Halladay nixed a trade to Milwaukee when he was with the Jays.

[DuWayne Steurer]

One thing he did in the past that I didn't care for was give multi year deals to pre-arby guys.

So you wouldn't have given that contract to Braun or Gallardo? You would have gone year to year with them like Prince?

Braun and Gallardo aren't anything close to comparable to guys like Wes Helms, Scott Podsednik, Brady Clark, etc, etc, etc.

[logan82]

I wasn't to fond of the Braun deal at the time. I don't hate it either but I am not really fond of it.

[brewmann04]

the borrom line is that he has 1 more year to make some tmprovement at it starts with hiring a new manager

[Invader3K]

I wasn't to fond of the Braun deal at the time. I don't hate it either but I am not really fond of it.

What could you possibly hate about Braun's contract? It makes him one of the most valuable position players in baseball.

[kramnoj]

Here is a quote from logan when the Braun contract was rumored

 

Longer than 4 years can lead to franchise crippling contracts.

 

post 111 from http://brewersfandemonium...u.com?topic=11573?page=6

[Invader3K]

I can understand being apprehensive at the time. He was a young player with basically only one season under his belt. However, looking at how he has performed since then, the contract seems like a great deal. These are the kind of contracts small market teams have to do with their high end players in order to retain them and remain competitive. Also, logan's comment that you linked to came out before it was revealed the Brewers were buying out two of Braun's FA years.

[MNBrew]

I'm not a Melvin apologist, but I am an advocate. Here's my 2¢ on the topic:

 

What's really unbelievable is, reading the first 90 or so comments on the JSOnline story of Macha's dismissal, just how many people feel like this is really far more Doug Melvin's fault for not getting more pitching. Yes, some of Melvin's moves backfired, but...

 

- How do you get free agents to come to Milwaukee who don't want to come to Milwaukee?

- How do you overpay good pitchers who aren't inclined to come to Milwaukee without totally blowing your whole payroll?

- How do you get stud pitchers to drop Milwaukee from their no-trade clause lists when you try to trade for them (which apparently happened when they made a strong pitch for Roy Halladay last winter)?

- When you can't get even most mediocre FAs to consider Milwaukee, and you actually make a GOOD decision by not bringing back Braden Looper (surprising how after 14 wins he didn't get signed by anyone!!!) or not signing other really not-very-good pitchers, why should you catch flak for doing nothing when the alternatives would've amounted to doing something much worse?

- How do you anticipate solid pitchers with great track records for being healthy coming up with injuries that pretty much scuttle their whole year (Hawkins & Davis) or the whole life of their contract (Riske)?

 

Granted, some things he has no control over, and certain gambles didn't pan out. It just works that way, and you take some heat, regardless. But what do all these nonsensical people think they could've done if they were in Doug Melvin's shoes? There are plenty of positives about this team that most Melvin haters seem to blatantly ignore:

 

- The hitters are generally very solid (although, yes, they could be better contact hitters and could hit better w/ RISP) AND good position playing prospects are still at all levels of their minor leagues.

- Most all the starting position players are home-grown -- actual Brewers draftees. Given where the organization was years ago, this is MASSIVE progress. Most of these guys aren't just passable, but current or potentially future All-Stars.

- They've finally developed & laid out a system-wide, clearly articulated approach for developing pitchers. They hired a pitching coach with a proven comprehensive plan. Some results started to show. Some of those results were not going to be instantaneous. It's the right direction to be moving, even if it should've occurred sooner.

- The bullpen actually got a whole lot better as more young guys were brought on board. That should hardly be a hopeless situation. Villanueva, though not good in the middle, wasn't a total waste and pitched better again after returning from AAA, though he's still a possible non-tender candidate, although not nearly as strong a candidate as Coffey. Only Coffey truly kept getting worse as the season wore on, all the way to the end. Even Hoffman had an ERA of 2.67 from June through the end of the year.

- Randy Wolf & Chris Narveson both actually came along quite well, and Chris Capuano was quite solid overall once he got the first few kinks worked back out.

 

Those are many positives this team has as it looks ahead. Many of those things can be attributed to Doug Melvin. Looking at the pitching staff, only Hoffman's & Bush's non-returns can be assumed. This picture's not totally terrible and should be a solid foundation:

 

Starters (or potential starters):

Gallardo, Wolf, Narveson, Capuano, Rogers, Jeffress

 

Relievers (or potential bullpen members, anyway):

Axford, Braddock, Parra (very good ERA as a reliever), Hawkins, Loe, Villanueva, McClendon, Coffey, Kintzler

 

This is hardly a lost cause. If they can land 1-2 excellent starters (FA or trade, though more likely trade), the whole picture will look even better.

 

To me, there's no doubt whatsoever that Melvin deserves to continue as Brewers GM.

[trwi7]

- How do you get free agents to come to Milwaukee who don't want to come to Milwaukee?

- How do you overpay good pitchers who aren't inclined to come to Milwaukee without totally blowing your whole payroll?

- How do you get stud pitchers to drop Milwaukee from their no-trade clause lists when you try to trade for them (which apparently happened when they made a strong pitch for Roy Halladay last winter)?

- When you can't get even most mediocre FAs to consider Milwaukee, and you actually make a GOOD decision by not bringing back Braden Looper (surprising how after 14 wins he didn't get signed by anyone!!!) or not signing other really not-very-good pitchers, why should you catch flak for doing nothing when the alternatives would've amounted to doing something much worse?

- How do you anticipate solid pitchers with great track records for being healthy coming up with injuries that pretty much scuttle their whole year (Hawkins & Davis) or the whole life of their contract (Riske)?

Why are you assuming the only pitchers that Melvin can get are free agents and expensive guys who have no trade clauses?

 

 

[MNBrew]

- How do you get free agents to come to Milwaukee who don't want to come to Milwaukee?

- How do you overpay good pitchers who aren't inclined to come to Milwaukee without totally blowing your whole payroll?

- How do you get stud pitchers to drop Milwaukee from their no-trade clause lists when you try to trade for them (which apparently happened when they made a strong pitch for Roy Halladay last winter)?

- When you can't get even most mediocre FAs to consider Milwaukee, and you actually make a GOOD decision by not bringing back Braden Looper (surprising how after 14 wins he didn't get signed by anyone!!!) or not signing other really not-very-good pitchers, why should you catch flak for doing nothing when the alternatives would've amounted to doing something much worse?

- How do you anticipate solid pitchers with great track records for being healthy coming up with injuries that pretty much scuttle their whole year (Hawkins & Davis) or the whole life of their contract (Riske)?

Why are you assuming the only pitchers that Melvin can get are free agents and expensive guys who have no trade clauses?

Why are you assuming that I was assuming that? That list wasn't intended to be exhaustive, but rather only some of my reactions to a sampling of several things for which many relentless Melvin bashers argue that DM should pay with his job. I touched on a variety of angles & supporting points. There are several other points I didn't touch on. I'd written a long enough post as it was.

 

Anyway, the fact that he didn't bring in more good pitching doesn't automatically mean that he had ways that he could do so realistically without crippling the talent-thin organization even further. Melvin's shown that any deal he's going to make HAS to be in the organization's best interests. There is a ton of conjecture about what he could've & should've done, and even more accompanying judgement of Melvin for that. But for all the zeal & conviction behind the judgement, it doesn't change the fact that it's still only based on conjecture. There's NO WAY short of mind-reading that we can know everything Melvin offered or was offered in the scads of deals that never became reality.

[MJLiverock]

Exactly, there is no way of know what he was offered but that can go either way, he may have turned down good or bad deals. The only measuring stick is the team's record and he is has been mediocre.

 

Many team's GM's have instanced of picking up guys from the scrap heap and getting a few good years out of them. They all throw a lot against the wall and see what sticks. It isn't as if there haven't been Trot Nixons and Jeff Weaver's that don't make it.

 

I saw it mentioned that the next guy might be worse so we can't fire Melvin. That is a terrible argument to make. Just because a guy isn't the worst GM in the league doesn't mean there can't be anyone better.

 

I'm not so mad at his failures as it is his seeming ability to bury his head in the sand and act like making tinkering little moves will improve one of the worst rotations in the league. Going out and continually grabbing back of the rotation guys and acting surprised that the rotation implodes and wears down his pen is frustrating or forcing his manager to ride Gallardo as hard as possible just to see a pitcher go into the 7th inning.

 

His infatuation with blowing money on aging veteren bullpen help and then seeing posts trying to give him credit for the improvent in the pen when the young guys came up. If he was truly a good GM he would have been able to evaluate his talent and not wasted money going after the old guys and just brought up guys like Axford, Loe, Braddock, etc. Risk taking is the only way a small market team like Milwaukee can get over the hump and playing to just be not terrible won't get them into a contender.

 

Claiming trades aren't there while other teams move players including pitchers is also frustrating. He seems to lack the creativity to make a deal happen if it involves mutliple players or teams. This idea of continually swapping minor pieces or grabbing scrap heap guys works when the talent level is terrible and small moves can build a team out of the basement but dosn't do much for trying build a contender.

 

He deserves credit for getting deals locking up Braun and Gallardo but is it really just a crap shoot? I mean how many other GM's would have picked those guys to lock up as well. It wasn't like he was magic in foresight there. He has also thrown deals around locking up Hall and Turnbow which have blown up. The Hart deal remains to be seen but barring injury and given what he would have gotten in Arby probably won't be too bad.

 

In sum his positives are almost equally matched by his negatives which is about what one would expect given the team is pretty mediocre as a result.

[BREWCREW5]

One thing he did in the past that I didn't care for was give multi year deals to pre-arby guys, or guys that simply didn't need to be bought out, after they had given exactly ONE year of decent production. (Helms, Podsednik, eg) I realize the multi years weren't financially crippling or anything, I just didn't see the point of needlessly rewarding these 'scrap heap' guys who came along and had one nice year with multi year deals when they were under team control anyways. If nothing else, reward them after they prove consistently year to year that they are a quality player.

I know what you are saying, but both Helms and Pods were both in the league this year and have had decent years since they left the crew.