So is everyone cool with DM now?

[lcbj68c]

I've been very critical of Melvin and have wanted him to follow the Tampa model. Now, with his ability to extend his stars, something Freidman was unable to do with Pena & Crawford, he might even be eclipsing them, atleast as far as this off-season is concerned. I'm happy with him through 2013. But if Marcum and Greinke both fail to resign, it'll be interesting to see what direction he goes...another Suppan..or ????

[Ennder]

He did so much good this year and then sabotaged it by signing Kotsay and accepting Betancourt which are as fundamentally flawed deals as the Gagne and Suppan deals were. I still like him and I'm afraid that the results of what he built this year will decide his future instead of whether the deals were actually good or not. If we under-produce he probably gets fired even though it will be the players fault and not his.

[logan82]

I've been very critical of Melvin and have wanted him to follow the Tampa model

 

You mean be really crappy for a decade so you get top ten and frequently top 3 picks in the draft ?

[yount19.u]

I was just daydreaming about the 2011 season this morning, and wanted to say that it would be pretty hard for a front office to have a better offseason than the Brewers' has just had.

100% true, but I would respectfully request that you no longer mention this out loud in order to avoid a jinx.

 

Seriously, though, what a difference a winter can make. Being able to have the hope that we all have going into 2011 is worth it to me. Hope springs attorney!

[TooLiveBrew]

100% true, but I would respectfully request that you no longer mention this out loud in order to avoid a jinx.

 

I'll do my best to comply http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[KCBrewerfan34]

If the Brewers make the playoffs this year DM will probably be named EXEC of the year, LOL

[monkeyman343434]

I would have been a lot more excited for the offseason if the Greinke trade didn't happen. This team up the middle is terrible, sans Weeks. Lucroy(whatever other C replaces him early in the season), Betancourt (or possibly Cruz) and Gomez/Dickerson is just downright terrible, and not a sign of a contending team. Yes, the starting pitching is very good, which will make the relief pitching even better, but the pitcher's can't strike out everyone. This team won't be able to make outs on balls put in play. McGehee, Betancourt, and Fielder are terrible, bottom 5 in the league, defenders. Braun and Hart are below average in the OF as well. They'll have to start Gomez in CF just to make up for those 2. I really hope Lucroy's offense improves this year (his minor league track record looks like it should), but if it doesn't, that's possibly 3 black holes at the bottom of the lineup, Gomez, Betancourt, and Lucroy. I hope Dickerson gets some ABs, because I think he's the best hitter of that bunch. The starting pitchers might even be better hitters than Betancourt and Gomez.

[chuckiehacks]

Really? You'd rather have Escobar and Cain playing everyday instead of Greinke? I think some people have gone overboard with the criticism of this defense. Yes, they're a generally poor defensive group. But the offense should be about the same as last year, maybe better, since Escobar was pretty much horrible at the plate. The defense will likely be a little worse because of Yuni. The pitching should be much, much, much better. I'm not sure how anyone can be upset about what that means for this season.

 

I recently read somewhere, maybe Rob Neyer, that summed it up well - Hitting, pitching and defense all impact a game, but defense has the least effect.

[logan82]

My only problem is that DM has seemingly pushed us to 86ish wins and gutted the minors to put us just a little short of the playoffs then decided that was good enough. I think he made the team interesting and exciting but not really a playoff team.

[brewerguy71]

My only problem is that DM has seemingly pushed us to 86ish wins and gutted the minors to put us just a little short of the playoffs then decided that was good enough. I think he made the team interesting and exciting but not really a playoff team.

 

 

This is the best post on the entire thread. I agree completely that he has done a good job at turning them into a contender, but in the end believe that they are about 2 or 3 wins away from a playoff spot. And for what? Playoff run this year is the only acceptable outcome given what DM has done to the farm system, anything short of that is a big failure on his part.

[Invader3K]

Well, 86 wins may be enough to win this division. Plus there's always the chance Melvin makes a move mid-season if the team looks to be in contention.

[TheCrew07]

No, my opinion of Melvin hasn't changed at all.

 

In WI I don't think there's any doubt that he's a vastly more popular GM than TT in GB, even after the super bowl victory. I do believe there is a bit more appreciation for what TT has done now, but I think if you asked random fans to rate GMs 1-10 Melvin would blow him away.

 

On the hand, I think Melvin gets way to much credit for acquiring name players at the wrong time. I've said it literally a thousand times on this site but I'm not ever interested in going all in... not ever. I'm extremely patient and want a rock solid organization top to bottom, I want to win for 10+ years, not win for 2, lose for 2, and so on. I see the usual cracks about TB losing forever to get high draft picks, but how was that different than Milwaukee prior to 2006? We seem to forget just how awful the franchise was and ignore the fact that TB made it to the WS largely through pitching they traded for and didn't develop themselves. We also have arguably the worst farm system in the division now, maybe we are better than the Astros, but that's about it, how do we sustain success moving forward?

 

TT built a franchise through patience, never overreacting, rarely spending money just to spend money (Popinga comes to mind here), he just keeps adding players with dynamic ability and they make plays. The young guys certainly have their ups and downs, Sam Shields is basically the epitome of the idea I'm talking about, but in the end he made enough plays to help the Packers achieve the ultimate goal. This is exactly what I've wanted Melvin to do, sign the young core early, build through drafft, trade excess resources for needs, and so on. Not since the Sexson and Overbay trades which I view as quantity over quality has Melvin acquired anyone with any longevity via trade.

 

It's not about the prospects given up, it's about giving up value for such a limited return. Grienke was incredibly expensive to acquire and I believe we overpaid for Marcum as well, there was nothing "excess" about any of the players moved in those trades, the talent wasn't redundant in the way that Brantley and LaPorta were at all. Yes building around pitching is the idea, but we need to build a stable of young pitching, not acquire players in their late 20s nearing FA that we'll have to replace in the short term, or resign for market value in the long term.

 

To the average fan I'm sure the trades look genius, but I'm just not able to get past the thought that Melvin has built a house of cards that will all come tumbling down with an injury or 2 to the wrong players. Melvin only trades for "known" quantities, I just don't think that's a philosophy for long term success in Milwaukee. To make the trades Melvin made over the winter and go 1 and done in the playoffs would be an epic failure n m opinion. I'm in the awkward position of caring and rooting for a team that I'm not sure success is their best interest... because on the field success means Melvin gets another 3 years and I dread the organization resigning Greinke and Marcum, or trying to lock up McGehee long term.

 

I know I'll get the "what was Melvin supposed to do?" excuse like always, but the answer is simple. He wasn't supposed to continually back himself into a corner and limit his options. I don't care to rehash his trade history again, he's philosophies work wonderfully for turning a franchise around and making it respectable, but I do not believe we'll ever reach the pinnacle and win a WS doing it his way. Not to mention it's impossible to sustain success over the long term when you cycle so much young talent into "proven" commodities.

[JJHardy7]

If we can complain that Melvin's worst move was signing Kotsay, I think DM did a pretty good job.

[TooLiveBrew]

To the average fan I'm sure the trades look genius

 

It's a good thing we have you to bless us with your well above-average fan ability

 

I get your points, I think everyone does at this point. It's just, well, not nearly as simple as you make it out to be, as usual.

[logan82]

I see the usual cracks about TB losing forever to get high draft picks, but how was that different than Milwaukee prior to 2006?

 

I am not sure how comparing the Rays now to the Brewers at a time when the Brewers clearly had an incompetent GM somehow makes their way better than ours.

 

The drafts from 1996-2005 were probably our stretch with the highest picks. TB was 1999-2008. We had picks of 8, 13, 13, 10, 11, 12, 7, 2, 5 and 5. TB was 1, 6, 6, 3, 2, 1, 4, 8, 3, 1 and 1. They averaged a pick 5 spots lower over that stretch. The "cracks" are because they did draft very, very high for a decade. You can keep talking about how the "do things the right way" and maybe they do but, we never reached their level of crapitude. Not one pick outside the top 10 and most in the top 5.