Would Melvin still be our GM?

[markedman5]

If the brewers had been "more successful" at keeping free agents?

 

Obviously we never could have kept all of these guys but as a small market team just think how crushing the Lee/Cordero contracts would have been?

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121210&content_id=40600780&vkey=news_mil&c_id=mil

[wisniewski]

These guys that are mentioned signed record deals at the time. And of those mentioned Sabathia is the only one I miss. (that includes Greinke)

[Ennder]

The GMs who gave Cordero and Lee their deals deserve to be fired, they were just bad deals. Sabathia was more reasonable and while I think the Greinke deal is for too much it isn't just awful.

[Invader3K]

The GMs who gave Cordero and Lee their deals deserve to be fired, they were just bad deals.

 

I think they both were.

[patrickgpe]

Melvin has obviously had some signings that didn't work out. the 3 ones that obviously stick out is gagne, soup, and wolf. none of them crippled the organization though since all 3 really fell off their final season of the deal.i think mark and doug has been willing to spend money but understand they have to do it smarter than everyone else.

[Ennder]

The Wolf deal was fine (albeit a no upside deal), he just got hurt the 3rd year. Gagne was a bad deal but it was for 1 year which makes it hard to be too bad. Suppan's deal I understand the reasoning behind it, but it was still pretty awful. The trade for Linebrink was pretty bad but in general the guys we traded away haven't been too impressive so far in the majors. People will bring up Cruz but outside of Texas he has barely been above replacement level so it is hard to know what he really is.

[patrickgpe]

The Wolf deal was fine (albeit a no upside deal), he just got hurt the 3rd year. Gagne was a bad deal but it was for 1 year which makes it hard to be too bad. Suppan's deal I understand the reasoning behind it, but it was still pretty awful. The trade for Linebrink was pretty bad but in general the guys we traded away haven't been too impressive so far in the majors. People will bring up Cruz but outside of Texas he has barely been above replacement level so it is hard to know what he really is.

 

the linebrink trade was bad and I'd love to have thatcher on the team, but Inman has obviously not pitched the way we were thinking he would. Suppan was OK the first 3 years and obviously terrible the 4th. He was never worth what Melvin paid him but thats how starting pitching working on the FA market.

 

plus i found the signing thread from 06 and most posters supported it. i always find it hard to criticize a GM for doing something i supported when it was made.

 

that being said, i checked what Ennder had to say in the thread and he said:

 

Suppan=Vargas last year would be something I could agree with, I do agree that Vargas has to show that he can pitch as well as last year or preferablly better before really comparing them and Suppan is a safer bet, though Vargas has a lot more upside.

 

Having said that I think Suppan is a pretty average pitcher, I ammended my statement saying he was a #4/#5 and he's probably really a #3/#4. I do think his past few years have shown regression when you take into account the defenses behind him though. I honestly think he'd be at best the Brewers 4th best starter and could be the #5 if Vargas improves.

 

so criticizing the signing is perfectly acceptable in that case

[Ennder]

The Suppan deal was a lot like what we need this year. We had a bunch of young pitchers and we just needed someone to eat up innings while they all got adjusted to pitching full seasons in the major. The money was too much but a lot of mediocre pitchers got that same type of contract during that time frame. I totally understood the reasoning behind the deal. The real big issue with Suppan was the 4th year. A declining pitcher who didn't have a stellar skillset to start with is just way too risky to go 4 years on. Plus we had pretty bad defensive teams so he just wasn't the right type of pitcher to go after.

[patrickgpe]

i agree, signing Dempster would do all of this, but i can't see the brewers giving him more for 2 years than the Red Sox 25 million or the brewers going an extra year. my initial post was to point out that when the brewers have gotten burnt on free agent signings it was to give players an extra season to get them to come here. None of the signing have been Mike Hampton disasters which would have had an affect on the club for years.

[RockCoCougars]

I prefer my 'innings eaters' not to have multi-year deals with a costly buyout. I'll take whatever veteran is kicking around on February 1st plus 10 million+ bucks as opposed to Dempster. Another thing to consider is that Wolf and Suppan were both much younger than Dempster is at this point when the Brewers signed them. While I hold the sincere hope that Melvin has learned his lesson with signing old starting pitchers to multi-year deals, I fear that Dempster will have little interest in the market- enter Milwaukee.