Jonah Keri of Grantland NAILS it...

[The stache]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9146327/jonah-keri-ranks-mlb-teams

 

I'm not sure how much of an article I can quote, so in the interest of not incurring any possible nasty grams from the site in question, I'll just leave the link.

 

Scroll down to the Brewer discussion, where Keri has us ranked 27th out of the 30 teams. He hits it out of the park. The injuries we have sustained are making it worse, but the construction of this team's roster is ultimately to blame for our horrid start. Carrying 13 pitchers is absurd.

[Ennder]

What a bunch of crud. The 13th pitcher is not responsible for our bad start and there is nothing wrong with carrying 12 pitchers in April when starts are short and players aren't stretched out as much.

[owbc]

Kudos to the Miller Park sound crew for queuing up Message in a Bottle when Lohse popped out of the dugout..."Sending out an SOS..."

 

I still think we would be 1-5 even if they had an extra bench bat: it probably would have been Josh Prince or Yuni or another .220 hitter coming up in that situation. Same result in all likelihood.

 

Take away the three best hitters from any team in baseball and they will have roster issues too.

[Outlander]

Not crud, it is one of the reasons along with poor pitching and injuries.

[Ennder]

Not crud, it is one of the reasons along with poor pitching and injuries.

 

Don't forget poor fielding and just downright bad luck. If I'm going to list the reasons for the 1-5 start the 13th pitcher is like 20th on the list and there is a reason they went with 13 and it was going to be a short term thing. It was a slight risk if we happened to have some injuries and go to extra innings in a game and that is exactly what happened. This is like the announcers ripping on the Indians the other day when their starting C got hurt and they had to give up the DH to put Santana at C. The team knows they are assuming some risk but the risk is small so they accepted it. You don't carry a 3rd C just because of the slight risk.

[JohnBriggs12]

The roster is poorly constructed, but that's due in large part to the timing of Gamel's injury. Of course the other huge mistake is deciding Gonzalez is the answer at 1B based on about 100 AB's a year ago. Assuming everyone returns, it's still a very good lineup, but right now it's pathetic. The question is can they win enough to stay afloat the next 2-3 weeks. They are going to get the game in today it looks like but I'm doing rain dances for the rest of this series.

 

Lohse's late arrival sort of upset the apple cart in the pitching staff. On the one hand they gave in to sign him but on the other, they still wanted to let Fiers and Peralta pitch in the rotation. They can't have it both ways. Either be committed to less experience or don't be. Lohse's signing should have relegated one of those two to Nashville.

[Ennder]

I don't think Narveson is fully healthy and they really didn't want to lose him. That is what messed up the bullpen the most. They can't send Fiers down and not have a long RP when you have Narveson not 100% and Lohse not stretched out. The one guy they could have sent down is Figaro I believe but they decided to risk having the 13th guy and it ended up hurting them because of the injuries.

 

It does confuse me that through all of this we haven't brought up Morris. He is probably too old to worry too much about his clocks and with the newest injuries we could really use the depth.

[pretendastronaut]

It's funny to argue that a pitching staff that has been hammered and is already taxed after one week of baseball, the problem is having that 13th pitcher.

[Noche]

All of the panicking is pretty outrageous. Same. Thing. Every. Year.

 

You would think people would learn.

[TURBO]

How shocking that Narveson isn't ready after major surgery....

 

How shocking that carrying 13 pitchers has caused us a problem offensively...

 

How shocking that not having a single 1B on the roster has caused us issues with infield positioning.

 

SHOCKING!

[faede]

I may be throwing out a radical idea here, but, could our lack of success so far this year be attributed to the fact that our top 3 offensive players are injured?

 

I'm probably wrong though and I'm sure there's overwhelming evidence that carrying 12 pitchers compared to 13 would have provided a drastic difference in our success this season but I thought I'd throw out a radical counterpoint.

[owbc]

I may be throwing out a radical idea here, but, could our lack of success so far this year be attributed to the fact that our top 3 offensive players are injured?

 

Well...that might be a minor issue, but the real reason is that Melvin and Roenicke didn't have an MLB-ready #3 first baseman after #1 and #2 went down.

[faede]

I may be throwing out a radical idea here, but, could our lack of success so far this year be attributed to the fact that our top 3 offensive players are injured?

 

Well...that might be a minor issue, but the real reason is that Melvin and Roenicke didn't have an MLB-ready #3 first baseman after #1 and #2 went down.

 

Got it!

 

How could they have neglected such a pivotal slot in our organization. Quite obviously, championships are won and lost by the #3 first baseman. Good call.

[xisxisxis]

Well...that might be a minor issue, but the real reason is that Melvin and Roenicke didn't have an MLB-ready #3 first baseman after #1 and #2 went down.

 

#1 went down in January and #2 went down at the beginning of Spring Training. So yeah I guess us fair weather fans who expect the GM to address a team weakness in all of 5-6 weeks are just unreasonable. I mean we're just the Milwaukee Brewers, how could we possibly do something in 5-6 weeks when other teams can take, well, hours to do the same thing.

[Oxy]

Well...that might be a minor issue, but the real reason is that Melvin and Roenicke didn't have an MLB-ready #3 first baseman after #1 and #2 went down.

 

#1 went down in January and #2 went down at the beginning of Spring Training. So yeah I guess us fair weather fans who expect the GM to address a team weakness in all of 5-6 weeks are just unreasonable. I mean we're just the Milwaukee Brewers, how could we possibly do something in 5-6 weeks when other teams can take, well, hours to do the same thing.

 

Because the difference between Alex Gonzalez/Martin Maldonado and a replacement level first basemen for 4 weeks is awfully close to nil. The value that Gonzalez would provide throughout the rest of the year would easily offset whatever difference might possibly exist (and pretty much only exists on paper).

[Ennder]

Well signing a FA 1B made no sense at all, you were going to get someone terrible and have to lose a player from the 40 man to do it. Bringing up Morris made some sense but they didn't want to for whatever reason. The whole thing is completely overblown though.

[gregmag]

I may be throwing out a radical idea here, but, could our lack of success so far this year be attributed to the fact that our top 3 offensive players are injured?

 

Well...that might be a minor issue, but the real reason is that Melvin and Roenicke didn't have an MLB-ready #3 first baseman after #1 and #2 went down.

 

Got it!

 

How could they have neglected such a pivotal slot in our organization. Quite obviously, championships are won and lost by the #3 first baseman. Good call.

If you actually have anything to say, as distinct from this smug, vacuous posturing, I would be interested to know what you think about the topic at hand.

 

I don't think we can simply blame the 1-5 record on injuries. We had Braun for three of those games, Ramirez for four, and -- as others have said -- time to come up with a better stopgap than Gonzalez and Yuni at 1b. Yes, we've had some bad luck. But you can't just shrug off poor roster construction on the theory that it probably won't matter. When you carry an extra pitcher and also a useless 25th man, while also starting an atrocious hitter at 1b, you're courting trouble, IMHO.

[owbc]

Melvin would have signed a 1B if one was available for the right price. I think we can all agree upon it--if not, we need to see some examples of possibilities that he may have turned down.

 

Otherwise, like I said, the critics are saying that he should have had a #3 MLB-ready first baseman already planned for before the beginning of March.

 

These debates are getting somewhat heated around here lately, but the same criticisms show up year after year so it gets frustrating. It's very easy to complain (that's what talk radio does for hours and hours every day) but I haven't seen a single name dropped of a 1B who should have been signed or traded for that would have been worth the price to fill in from now to May and then serve as a backup afterward. I'm open to criticizing Melvin, but I need to see something more than what has been offered so far. Who should be the new 25th man? What position player should replace the 13th pitcher?

[logan82]

I haven't seen a single name dropped of a 1B who should have been signed or traded for that would have been worth the price to fill in from now to May and then serve as a backup afterward. I'm open to criticizing Melvin, but I need to see something more than what has been offered so far. Who should be the new 25th man? What position player should replace the 13th pitcher?

Morris.

[owbc]

Morris is a reasonable choice, but they are holding him back because of service time I assume? He also was 3 for 26 in spring training, so most likely we would still be 1-5 and in near-panic mode either way.

[gregmag]

I think Morris is pretty clearly a preferable alternative to what we've been running out there. Also, with respect, the fact that he was 3 for 26 in spring training doesn't seem to me like it means anything.

 

I think you and others are right to point out that signing any kind of veteran, established 1b likely would not have been worth the costs. OTOH, yesterday we played arguably the worst position player in baseball at the easiest position to find hitting. That doesn't have to happen. The bar ain't high. Grab some injury-prone AAAA guy who has hit before and see if you catch lightning in a bottle, then release him if he flops. One time in ten you might catch lightning, one time in maybe three or four the guy at least gives a decent account of himself. DM used to be good at moves like that -- Doug Davis, Podsednik, etc.

 

Finally, I don't get the continued insistence that it doesn't matter what we do about any of this, because we'd still probably be losing anyway. Good organizations do everything they can to maximize the quality of their rosters. No, the Brewers can't just snap their fingers and create a 100-win team, but they can work at the margins to get better.

[monty57]

Melvin would have signed a 1B if one was available for the right price. I think we can all agree upon it--if not, we need to see some examples of possibilities that he may have turned down.

 

Otherwise, like I said, the critics are saying that he should have had a #3 MLB-ready first baseman already planned for before the beginning of March.

 

These debates are getting somewhat heated around here lately, but the same criticisms show up year after year so it gets frustrating. It's very easy to complain (that's what talk radio does for hours and hours every day) but I haven't seen a single name dropped of a 1B who should have been signed or traded for that would have been worth the price to fill in from now to May and then serve as a backup afterward. I'm open to criticizing Melvin, but I need to see something more than what has been offered so far. Who should be the new 25th man? What position player should replace the 13th pitcher?

 

The first base situation was easily rectified, as we have the #3 & 4 options in AAA. The problem is that Roenicke/Melvin decided to name a backup SS (who couldn't find a starting job in all of baseball) as the starting 1B, prompting the "need" to sign someone to be the backup SS (Betancourt), filling up the 40-man. Then they decided that they couldn't afford to lose Bianchi or Rogers, so they placed them on the DL, so we're in a position that we don't want to lose any of the remaining healthy guys on the 40 man, menaing that we can't make a move to add Morris or Halton.

 

But again, that is simply looking at the "micro" issue... what Melvin could do right now. My bigger issue is that Melvin could have implemented a strategy over the past few years that wouldn't have left us with an inordinant amount of 30-somethings eating up most of our payroll with no depth or financial flexibility to help out. The Cards had a lot of injuries this spring, but they have a farm system to replace the injured guys. They were even willing to go with young pitching and an unproven, mediocre prospect like Kozma rather than panicking and veering from their plan... the one that keeps them relevant at the MLB level while maintaining a strong farm. Melvin decided to scrap that plan a few years ago, in order to open a "window" to be as good as possible over a short time frame. The window is closing and now people are getting upset when things are going wrong.

 

Having the injuries pile up all at once makes everyone stand up and take notice, but I think we should expect injuries when we have so many older guys (over 30) on the team. We should expect injuries when Hart and Weeks are ticking time bombs for injuries, Braun has always had nagging injuries throughout his career, and Ramirez is ancient for a professional athlete. We've depleted the farm, but done almost nothing to replenish the farm for quite some time, so it should not be a surprise when we don't have top-tier guys ready to replace the injured players. With all of our money tied into aging position players, it should not be a surprise that we have questionable pitching in both the rotation and the bullpen.

 

To add salt to the wounds, Hart and Ramirez were probably two of the biggest names that could've been traded this season, and now both of them have the "bad knee" label attached to them, so they have greatly diminished any value they may have had on the market.

 

So, while people ask "what could Melvin have done in this instance," I say that I'm not too interested in any particular move. Look at the system from top to bottom. That is what Melvin should be graded on. I think that compared to teams like the Cardinals, the Melvin-built Brewer system is not looking good.

[TooLiveBrew]

I haven't seen a single name dropped of a 1B who should have been signed or traded for that would have been worth the price to fill in from now to May and then serve as a backup afterward. I'm open to criticizing Melvin, but I need to see something more than what has been offered so far. Who should be the new 25th man? What position player should replace the 13th pitcher?

Morris.

Overbay. Halton.

[logan82]

Morris is a reasonable choice, but they are holding him back because of service time I assume? He also was 3 for 26 in spring training, so most likely we would still be 1-5 and in near-panic mode either way.

I don't think service time should be a consideration. He is 24 so by the time he would have 6 years in he would be 30. Plus this year would probably only be a partial year. They would have had to add him to the 40-man roster a bit early and to be honest I am not really sold on him as a hitter. I think he has only had one good year in the minors. However, we know what we have in Yuni. I would take young upside talent in the same position as Morris over Yuni every single time.

 

Some would still be in a near panic. My frustration is almost 100% with Yuni starting at 1B. There is just no call for that.

[owbc]

Those are reasonable counter arguments. It's clear that the current situation isn't working, but the injuries made it far, far worse than it would have been otherwise.