Hart to have knee surgery (Reply #88: Had surgery 1/25)

[James Zumstein]

While I agree that this is a major disappointment, if we had tried to trade him at any point in the last couple of seasons he would have had to pass a physical with his new team, which now seems unlikely that he would have been able to. Blaming Corey Hart's bad knees on Doug Melvin is perhaps a little harsh.

[Ennder]

If Melvin traded players anywhere near the rate you people want he would have lost his fanbase years ago. Someone has a good year trade him ASAP and play for 2 years from now! STAT! Last years bullpen was mediocre at best going into the season, trading Axford would have just been foolish. The team was a playoff caliber team so trading Hart would have required a perfect deal giving back a major league quality player which just isn't that likely. I know it is cool to second guess every move we make and take the hindsight is 20/20 view on most of them but it just gets old after a while. If we had played for 2014 either of the past 2 years Melvin should have been fired given the core of the team we had and how competitive the roster is and the time left on the high end talents contracts.

[joepepsi]

If Melvin traded players anywhere near the rate you people want he would have lost his fanbase years ago. Someone has a good year trade him ASAP and play for 2 years from now! STAT! Last years bullpen was mediocre at best going into the season, trading Axford would have just been foolish. The team was a playoff caliber team so trading Hart would have required a perfect deal giving back a major league quality player which just isn't that likely. I know it is cool to second guess every move we make and take the hindsight is 20/20 view on most of them but it just gets old after a while. If we had played for 2014 either of the past 2 years Melvin should have been fired given the core of the team we had and how competitive the roster is and the time left on the high end talents contracts.

The trade 'em once they are good strategy is born from a fan base accustomed to a generation of losing. It's basic tenet: a team should never mortgage the future in the hope of winning this season. Instead, the clever strategy is the constant rebuild; stockpiling the minors with premium talent acquired by trading vets in their prime. It's a losing strategy but it gives fans hope for a better future, albeit one that never quite arrives, and it avoids the heartbreak of the calculated risk that falls just a little short.

 

The Brewers may never see another generation of homegrown talent like what arrive in the mid 2000's: Prince, Weeks, JJ, Hart, Braun, Gallardo. Each player is an All Star and produced or exceeded their prospect projections. It's not unlike the young talent the Yankees brought up in the mid 90's, that was the core of their Championship run: Bernie Williams, Jeter, Posada, Pettitte, Rivera.

 

Melvin picked the right strategy from 2007-2012 by going for it.

[trwi7]

The right strategy is highly debateable. Even with 6 all-stars and two possible hall of famers it resulted in two playoff appearances in 6 years and no World Series appearances.

[dlk9s]

The right strategy is highly debateable. Even with 6 all-stars and two possible hall of famers it resulted in two playoff appearances in 6 years and no World Series appearances.

 

Here's the problem though, and this is what joepepsi was talking about: when do you stop playing for the future? When do you actually try to win in the present?

 

I agree with joe: the constant rebuild is the safe strategy. It's the "we're not rich like those other guys, but just you wait...this is building to something HUGE" strategy. But at some point, unless you run into the perfect storm like Tampa did, you have to make those risky moves to finally try to win.

 

Sure, there's no guarantee that you will really win now when you go with the "win now" strategy. But if you make solid short term moves when your team looks like it's just a step away from being a championship contender, there is more certainty that you could actually win than there is if you keep waiting for the future to arrive.

[trwi7]

Why can't you win with talented young players? Why does it always have to be go out and trade for a guy for a half season or a couple seasons from free agency using your young talent to get him? Why can't we keep our young talent and let them grow at the major league level and then replace a few of them when we have another young player to take their spot when they start getting expensive?

 

You guys are making it sound like the only options are go for it with vets and don't trade anybody because we're going for it in a specific time frame or keep trading your vets for young guys over and over so you're constantly winning 70 games.

[monty57]

I think we're looking at extremes. I say "trade him" a lot, but I don't want to see anything like a "constant rebuild." Every team occasionally has to trade some veterans for youth, it's picking the moments to do it. Going into last year, I saw a team with playoff aspirations, but with a lot of talent leaving at the end of the year. Melvin really couldn't trade Marcum and Greinke before the season, so I hoped he would have a quick trigger finger if the team tanked early. They did tank early, but Melvin waited until the last second to decide to make any moves, which cost him the ability to trade Marcum, and we lost him for nothing at the end of the year.

 

Coming into this offseason, the players going into their final season who had some trade value were Gomez and Hart. Both had competent replacements (Gamel and Schafer), but there didn't seem to be any serious consideration of trading either player, because it may have weakened this year's team (although it would strengthen future teams). We've lost the ability to trade Hart (maybe he couldn't be traded because of his knee, but it sounds like the injury/aggravation which required surgery occurred a month or so into the offseason, so he may or may not have passed a physical). There is a very good chance we will lose both Hart and Gomez for nothing at the end of this season.

 

For me, it's not about trading everyone, but it is about looking at who makes sense to trade and occasionally trading someone. The trade of Greinke helped, but isn't close to a panacea. Melvin has been playing what I call the "window strategy," which is going all in for a short period trying to win it all. This strategy includes doing things like trading away good prospects for veterans on short-term deals, signing expensive free agents and extending aging vets to expensive contracts.

 

That has left us in a situation where we have one of the worst farm systems in baseball, and will be losing a lot of talent over the next couple of years. We don't have the payroll to replace all the talent we're losing through free agency, and without a good farm, we won't be able to replace them with prospects or by trading prospects for MLB players. This is a natural outcome of the "window strategy," so no one should be surprised when we're not a very good team in the near future. Even with that knowledge, and with the knowledge that this year's team is talented, but probably a long-shot for the playoffs, people still cling to the belief that Melvin "should be fired" if he does anything which in any way may weaken this year's team.

 

It can go both ways. You can be a good team after trading away a good player. I don't think it's a good strategy (though the "window strategy" sometimes makes it necessary) to "trade everyone," but it is also a bad strategy to "trade no one."

[Ennder]

The right strategy is highly debateable. Even with 6 all-stars and two possible hall of famers it resulted in two playoff appearances in 6 years and no World Series appearances.

 

Results oriented thinking isn't helpful at all though. They put out rosters capable of making the playoffs for an extended period of time. Both rosters that did make the playoffs had enough talent to make it to a world series, just both times the pitching tanked once we got there. That is what teams are looking to do.

 

Melvin's failures have been more in weak FA Signings than anything else. While people hate most of his trades there haven't been very many that look bad a few years later so it is hard for me to nick him on it much. These next couple years are going to be really tricky because so much of what we do is tied into how quickly the young pitchers become good players.

[monty57]

These next couple years are going to be really tricky because so much of what we do is tied into how quickly the young pitchers become good players.

 

If you define "good" as "well above average," then I think the question is: "How many of our young pitchers will end up being good, and how long will it take to get there?" coupled with the question of "Do we have any position players in the minor leagues who will ever be quality major leaguers?"

 

We seem to have a lot of pitchers who will be MLB players, but most will be middle-to-back of the rotation starters or bullpen arms. We need to have some blossom into top-of-the-rotation starters or we're going to have to spend $25MM/year to find someone on the FA market in order to compete. We're dreadfully thin in the position player ranks, and our hopes really rely on a few guys drafted last year and on Morris proving last year wasn't a fluke.

[Ennder]

I think pitchers are much harder to read so I don't know what they will be. I could see us having an ace pitcher emerge out of that bunch, I could see them all end up being #5's or bullpen guys. You just never know with pitching.

 

As for position players we have sort of a gap between almost ready mediocre guys and really young flawed guys. I mean if Morris develops some plate patience he becomes a really good prospect. Guys like Ozuna and Walla look like they could be good but it is so hard to judge players that are that young. There isn't much super star talent coming though, I can agree with that. Then again the last group of star talented prospects we had has largely been a failure. Lawrie is the last hope of that group and he is making his name with his defense of all things so far.

 

That really unfortunate year where Sabathia and Sheets both didn't bring back the picks they should have really hurt.

[RobDeer 45]

Monty57 - The way you described your preferred strategy is the way I feel. I don't think you should ever trade a guy in the middle of a contract if he has a great year. Maybe if the rest of the team was terrible but that hasn't been the case lately so people who go back and say we should have traded player x two years ago does t seem realistic. Because we are small market I do think we need to trade guys like Hart and Gomez "if" we can get some good young talent back. I also think people get mad at DM for not making trades but we have no idea what he's getting for offers. If they are offering Henry Blanco for Hart it makes no sense. I hope we can trade those guys this year because I don't think either makes sense to extend (money, age, etc).

[RockCoCougars]

If Melvin traded players anywhere near the rate you people want he would have lost his fanbase years ago. Someone has a good year trade him ASAP and play for 2 years from now! STAT! Last years bullpen was mediocre at best going into the season, trading Axford would have just been foolish. The team was a playoff caliber team so trading Hart would have required a perfect deal giving back a major league quality player which just isn't that likely. I know it is cool to second guess every move we make and take the hindsight is 20/20 view on most of them but it just gets old after a while. If we had played for 2014 either of the past 2 years Melvin should have been fired given the core of the team we had and how competitive the roster is and the time left on the high end talents contracts.

The trade 'em once they are good strategy is born from a fan base accustomed to a generation of losing. It's basic tenet: a team should never mortgage the future in the hope of winning this season. Instead, the clever strategy is the constant rebuild; stockpiling the minors with premium talent acquired by trading vets in their prime. It's a losing strategy but it gives fans hope for a better future, albeit one that never quite arrives, and it avoids the heartbreak of the calculated risk that falls just a little short.

 

The Brewers may never see another generation of homegrown talent like what arrive in the mid 2000's: Prince, Weeks, JJ, Hart, Braun, Gallardo. Each player is an All Star and produced or exceeded their prospect projections. It's not unlike the young talent the Yankees brought up in the mid 90's, that was the core of their Championship run: Bernie Williams, Jeter, Posada, Pettitte, Rivera.

 

Melvin picked the right strategy from 2007-2012 by going for it.

 

Spot on post. Generally, outside of the fairly rare veteran for veteran deals, two types of teams are involved in a trade. The competitive team is adding the vets and the rebuilding team is dumping salary/adding the young guys. The Brewers 'went for it', and thus have been generally adding the vets. I understand the concept of 'selling high', but that is not something that you are wont to do when you plan to compete for the division. In hindsight, it's easy to say that a certain guy should have been moved. but it's impossible to quantify the value of any return. These veterans don't seem to be bringing the return that they used to. Look at what the Giants had to give up for Pence, not really that much. I've said this before, but when it comes to a guy like Hart, I think that a lot of people tend to undervalue his worth to the Brewers while at the same time overvaluing him on the trade market.

[paul253]

If Melvin traded players anywhere near the rate you people want he would have lost his fanbase years ago.

 

How? People have never suggested trading anyone in the prime of their careers when they are still affordable unless that player is playing over his head and his value is likely to go way down. What we've essentially suggested is doing what he did with Zack Greinke, but doing it more often. Did the fan base go nuts when we traded Greinke? Of course not, because most people knew it was the best move. I don't think anyone will complain about how the Greinke situation played out. Trading Corey Hart would have been the same thing. Making moves based on what the fan base wants is foolish.

 

Someone has a good year trade him ASAP and play for 2 years from now! STAT! Last years bullpen was mediocre at best going into the season, trading Axford would have just been foolish

 

No it was not. Going into the season the bullpen was supposed to be a strength, with Axford, KRod, Lowe and Braddock. It ended up being a disaster and Axford was a major reason why. You could have gotten an elite prospect or two for Axford after 2011. Now you just have to hope he can come even close to what he did two years ago. Like I said, people have never suggested trading away guys like Weeks, Braun or Fielder in the primes of their career. But when it comes to guys like Axford, whose major league success seems to have come out of nowhere, maximizing his value wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I'm sorry but for the most part closers are a dime a dozen. Replacing him wouldn't be nearly as difficult as replacing a Greinke or a Marcum. So if you can get a #2 potential pitcher by trading a reliever you have to at least consider it.

 

And I'm sorry but sometimes teams like the Brewers have to play for "2 years from now". We can't go all in every year and look no further than this year to see why. We've gone all in the past 2 years and now it's time to come back to earth a little bit. Luckily our pitching prospects advanced right when we needed them too, but if Rogers had another setback or Fiers didn't pitch lights out we'd be looking at another rotation with guys similar to Braden Looper and Randy Wolf. Sometimes you need the prospects because they are going to build your core, cheaply, for 4 or 5 years.

[Ennder]

No it was not. Going into the season the bullpen was supposed to be a strength, with Axford, KRod, Lowe and Braddock

 

No it wasn't. I posted before the season that I was worried about the bullpen. It had no depth at all to it and I thought we were going to really struggle in the middle innings. There was no reason at all to trade Axford last year.

[dlk9s]

Regardless of people's expectations about the 2012 bullpen, nobody expected it to be a train wreck into a dumpster fire. With just a mediocre performance out of the bullpen, we could've made a title run. And I agree with Ennder about Axford. Absolutely no reason to look to trade him after 2011 - you have a young guy with really good stuff who seems to have a good head on his shoulders. Plus, as a nice bonus, he appears to love being a Brewer. There was no reason to think he was going to suck and I, personally, feel confident he'll figure out how to bounce back. He's not a headcase like many closers.

[TooLiveBrew]

The Brewers may never see another generation of homegrown talent like what arrive in the mid 2000's: Prince, Weeks, JJ, Hart, Braun, Gallardo. Each player is an All Star and produced or exceeded their prospect projections. It's not unlike the young talent the Yankees brought up in the mid 90's, that was the core of their Championship run: Bernie Williams, Jeter, Posada, Pettitte, Rivera.

 

Melvin picked the right strategy from 2007-2012 by going for it.

Well, as much as I love that generation of Brewers, it's not even close to comparing to 3 solid HoF candidates & one fringe HoF candidate.

 

And although it may be clear already, I definitely don't agree with the 'window' strategy for the Brewers -- not only did it fail the organization in not bringing back any hardware, it has led to the current weak farm system that, as it stands, won't be able to replace the talent the org. will lose. Melvin's results reflect his methods quite well imo. If you want to say something matches up with a fanbase accustomed to losing, it's being thrilled with one postseason series win in 6 seasons.

[MNBrew]

. . . . That has left us in a situation where we have one of the worst farm systems in baseball, and will be losing a lot of talent over the next couple of years. We don't have the payroll to replace all the talent we're losing through free agency, and without a good farm, we won't be able to replace them with prospects or by trading prospects for MLB players. . . . (etc.) . . .

Even some of the "experts" say the Brewers' farm system isn't so depleted, just short on "sure thing" prospects. So this mantra everyone keeps repeating that the Brewers have a weak farm system is a myth and thus sheer nonsense.\

 

Is the farm system stellar? No, of course not. But is it devoid of eventual solid MLB contributors? Heck no: there are plenty of prospects with legit MLB promise & potential. Blue chippers? Probably not, but still plenty of players with solid MLB futures.

 

From the Greinke & Marcum trades of 2 winters ago, the only prospect we dealt who's left in the minors is Odorizzi (since Jeffress really wouldn't seem to be considered a prospect anymore). And we've drafted plenty of seemingly high-end guys (this year's 3 pre-2nd-round picks, 2 #1's last year) & have guys like Morris, Nelson, Davis, etc. coming up.

[TooLiveBrew]

To nitpick, I wouldn't include Haniger as a high-end type of talent, nor would I include Jungmann & Bradley in that category at this point. Just 'safer'-style college picks imo. Unfortunately there are several then-high-schoolers who the Brewers could not only have drafted, but have also performed well as pros. Seid & Co. have come across as pretty risk-averse so far, and imo it's reflected in a very 'blah' farm system.

[monty57]

. . . . That has left us in a situation where we have one of the worst farm systems in baseball, and will be losing a lot of talent over the next couple of years. We don't have the payroll to replace all the talent we're losing through free agency, and without a good farm, we won't be able to replace them with prospects or by trading prospects for MLB players. . . . (etc.) . . .

Even some of the "experts" say the Brewers' farm system isn't so depleted, just short on "sure thing" prospects. So this mantra everyone keeps repeating that the Brewers have a weak farm system is a myth and thus sheer nonsense.\

 

Is the farm system stellar? No, of course not. But is it devoid of eventual solid MLB contributors? Heck no: there are plenty of prospects with legit MLB promise & potential. Blue chippers? Probably not, but still plenty of players with solid MLB futures.

 

From the Greinke & Marcum trades of 2 winters ago, the only prospect we dealt who's left in the minors is Odorizzi (since Jeffress really wouldn't seem to be considered a prospect anymore). And we've drafted plenty of seemingly high-end guys (this year's 3 pre-2nd-round picks, 2 #1's last year) & have guys like Morris, Nelson, Davis, etc. coming up.

 

Right. We're going to replace All-Star caliber players (Hart, Weeks, Ramirez, Gallardo will all leave in the next few seasons) with "MLB contributors." That's my whole point. When we were going "all in," we had guys like Prince and Greinke who now cost over $20MM/year. We don't have those type guys in the system, we can't afford them in free agency, and we don't have the prospects to trade for them.

 

We should have money as the aforementioned guys leave, but not enough to sign the talent we'll need to fill in around our "MLB contributors," since guys like Hart are now getting $15MM/year and guys like Gomez are getting $12MM/year. The TV money coming in (far more to other teams than to the Brewers) is coming at exactly the wrong time for the Brewers, pushing everyone's price tag up and forcing teams like the Brewers to rely more on their farm, which doesn't look like it's capable of producing a playoff caliber MLB team.

 

As to who we traded away, everyone seems to forget that we also traded away Escobar (without trading him, we wouldn't have needed to spend money on FAs and eventually need to include a SS in the Grienke trade) and Cain (with him we wouldn't have needed Gomez). Also, the "window" strategy isn't just about who we traded away, but also that we never traded for anyone (which could have added talent to our current system), and we didn't give promising-but-not-sure-thing prospects a chance (signed Ramirez to block Green, holding Gomez blocking Schafer, etc).

 

Whatever your lot in life, looking only for the present will generally hurt the future. Melvin did what he did. Some are happy for it, some aren't. Doesn't matter, because it happened. Now, we are dealing with the results, which to me looks like a slim hope for a playoff team this year and maybe next before the guys we've relied on for years walk away, and then an extended period of watching Braun surrounded by "MLB contributors" plus a few mid-tier FA pickups to help generate fan interest.

 

We could still do something about it, as the aging, expensive, but still talented vets are still on our roster, and we could look at potentially trading someone at some point to bring in some talented youth, but every time it's brought up, people say those suggesting it are "repeating a mantra that is sheer nonsense."

[topper09er]

We should have money as the aforementioned guys leave, but not enough to sign the talent we'll need

 

Unfortunetly, its not that simple. We will never have enough money to sign the top players because there is no set price. Its not a TV where you can save up enough money if you make sacrafices in other areas to then go buy the top of line TV. In MLB there is only 1 "TV" that exists (the top free agent), so the richer teams will just pay whatever it takes to get them. If there was only 1 TV in American then Bill Gates would own it just because he can pay the most, Donald Trump would never own it even if he sold all his extra houses and tried to save up for it.

 

Even if we offered CC Sabathia a $170 MM he would have just taken that to the Yankees and they would have offered him $180.

[monty57]

We should have money as the aforementioned guys leave, but not enough to sign the talent we'll need

 

Unfortunetly, its not that simple. We will never have enough money to sign the top players because there is no set price. Its not a TV where you can save up enough money if you make sacrafices in other areas to then go buy the top of line TV. In MLB there is only 1 "TV" that exists (the top free agent), so the richer teams will just pay whatever it takes to get them. If there was only 1 TV in American then Bill Gates would own it just because he can pay the most, Donald Trump would never own it even if he sold all his extra houses and tried to save up for it.

 

Even if we offered CC Sabathia a $170 MM he would have just taken that to the Yankees and they would have offered him $180.

 

That's a very good point, but what I was getting at is that if we have a near-playoff team, we can scrape a little money together to get another guy. If we have Braun and a bunch of "MLB contributors," we can't scrape enough money together to get a whole bunch of guys, even if Weeks, Gallardo, etc are off the books. We are going to need to find star players somewhere, and the only place I can see us getting them at this point would be to trade away some of our good players before they walk in free agency.

[umphrey]

Gamels knee is acting up. Sounds like he won't miss any time, but it's probably going to linger for awhile. Time to call Carlos Lee? Is Hunter Morris an option at all this year?

 

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/16/mat-gamel-aggravates-surgically-repaired-right-knee/

[markedman5]

Why is this "slacker" Hart trying so hard to come back early?

 

 

http://brewersbeat.mlblogs.com/2013/02/21/roenicke-still-planning-on-four-month-absence-for-hart/

[Ennder]

Even if we offered CC Sabathia a $170 MM he would have just taken that to the Yankees and they would have offered him $180.

 

This is somewhat true but keep in mind the Yankees were outbid by the Pirates on Martin this year. They didn't go after any of the top FAs even though the team has tons of holes in it. The changes to the game have been making an impact. There is more parity in baseball right now than there even has been, probably as much as football to be honest.

 

Right. We're going to replace All-Star caliber players (Hart, Weeks, Ramirez, Gallardo will all leave in the next few seasons) with "MLB contributors." That's my whole point

 

Depends on the players. The issue with our farm system is it is so young there is no way to know what we do have yet. Hart and Gallardo weren't all stars back when they were drafted either.

[Fear The Chorizo]

While contracts for the marquee players are going to continue going up with rising revenues, I think the emphasis leage-wide on developing young talent from within and trying to avoid longterm contracts to aging veterans is going to actually lower team payrolls overall. The steroids era did more to prolong the careers of veteran players than anything, and now teams like the Yankees, Phillies, Cubs, and Red Sox have recently struggled to correct their inflated payrolls.

 

The Brewers are actually in decent financial shape moving forward - they obviously need some of their young pitching to stick at the major league level, and 2 years from now I think their minor league system will look much better than it currently does as some of their young talent develops.