General thoughts on the franchise.

[Nottso]

I think a lot of this "Mark A. is a meddling owner" talk is premature. There's no evidence of same to the best of my knowledge, unless I'm misremembering again. The Suppan debacle is the only one that I know of in which Mark A. was an active participant; and the way I remember that one, Melvin (and many other GM's, reportedly) wanted Suppan. The infamous "dinner with the owner" was just a recruiting tool; and sadly, as it turns out, it worked.

 

Are there any cases at all where Mark A. is known to have meddled, or even any in which there's evidence of him meddling? (I'm not asking rhetorically, I'm asking because I don't know.)

[monty57]

Honestly I genuinely don't understand how anyone can make the argument that the path Melvin & Attanasio decided to go down was either all that successful, or the only/best choice. I don't mean that in a condescending way -- I just really am unable to analyze the organization & come to that conclusion.

 

What frustrates me the most is that they weren't willing to complete the "going for it" mentality. They didn't win the Rafael Furcal sweepstakes and thought it was just fine to go with Yuni B at SS. They didn't see the problem with Wolf/Marcum and get another pitcher. Those 2 things would have really helped. If you are going to mortgage the future and go for it at least go all the way.... of course Roenicke might've screwed it all up anyways.... Arg!!!!

 

The way I see it, if you are going to play the "window" strategy, you have to do it like the experts, the Florida/Miami Marlins.

 

1) Get a group of good prospects

2) Let them get their feet under them at the MLB level, showing patience and letting the young players make mistakes, even though the MLB team is bad.

3) Once the good young players gel, sign/trade for a bunch of good, expensive, veteran players to complement the young players.

4) Let them play together for one year when you're trying to win it all.

5) Trade everyone of value away for prospects in the offseason after the "go for it" year (or during the season if, like in 2012, the team doesn't hit the ground running). This is how they get back to step (1) above - get good prospects.

 

If you try to play the "window" strategy, but aren't willing to blow the whole thing up and trade everyone away, you will look like the Brewers currently look, like the Cubs looked a few seasons ago, or like many teams who have attempted this have always ended up looking.

 

At least the Marlins always end up with good prospects, giving them a shot at being good again in a few years. I don't see how the Brewers will be good in the foreseeable future.

[brewmann04]

I still don''t have an Issue with Loshe signing because their is no gurantee that our pick would turn about to be anything especially with their past history . The Brewers need to make that shift with their draft because that where is the major Fault.

[Outlander]

Honestly I genuinely don't understand how anyone can make the argument that the path Melvin & Attanasio decided to go down was either all that successful, or the only/best choice. I don't mean that in a condescending way -- I just really am unable to analyze the organization & come to that conclusion.

I don't think it is that hard to argue that they were successful especially when just analyzing the past performance of this organization and lack of success. It would have been nice to go to a World Series but from 83-2007 they had no playoffs and not many players that they could market after they retire if any. They have now gone to the playoffs 2 out of 5 years and have future Brewer Hall of Famers in Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart and potentially others. Plus they have a guy in Braun that they can trot out over the next 50 years for a cheap pop and will likely be only the third Brewer hall of famer ever. I honestly don't understand how anybody that watched Brewers baseball in the 90's or early 2000's could say they were not successful. We always want more and they could always be more successful but generally Attanasio has put out a good product since becoming an owner and this is likely just a bump in the road and not a repeat of the Selig years.

[monty57]

I think a lot of this "Mark A. is a meddling owner" talk is premature. There's no evidence of same to the best of my knowledge, unless I'm misremembering again. The Suppan debacle is the only one that I know of in which Mark A. was an active participant; and the way I remember that one, Melvin (and many other GM's, reportedly) wanted Suppan. The infamous "dinner with the owner" was just a recruiting tool; and sadly, as it turns out, it worked.

 

Are there any cases at all where Mark A. is known to have meddled, or even any in which there's evidence of him meddling? (I'm not asking rhetorically, I'm asking because I don't know.)

 

There was an article linked in another thread (heck, maybe it was earlier in this one), which stated that Attanasio agreed to sign Lohse over the objections of Doug Melvin.

 

That along with things like Attanasio seeming to be the impetus behind offering potentially franchise-crippling contracts to Sabathia, Fielder and Greinke, the Suppan dinner, etc, is leading me in the direction that I believe Attanasio is at least "meddling."

 

Melvin lost his job in Texas because he argued against the A-Rod signing. I wonder how much of our "all in, all the time" mentality comes from Attanasio and Melvin just shuts his mouth and signs the deals.

 

Personally, I thought the Brewers were en route to building a sustainably good franchise until they decided that instead of trading Fielder and Hart for young talent, they'd trade young talent to obtain Marcum and Greinke. Instead of bringing in 3-4 good, young players to add to a young core, we traded the young core for two 2-year rentals. How much of this decision was on Melvin and how much was on Attanasio we may never know. I'd just always assumed Melvin was behind the decision, but now I'm leaning more toward believing that Attanasio has a lot to do with any big decision.

 

As I mentioned above, if the Brewers were going to make the decision they did to go all in, they should've followed the Marlin model and blew it up after the 2011 season. Trade everyone and get boatloads of young talent back. The fans would've hated it, but we'd be in a much better spot right now. I'd much rather we'd have just went with the sustainably good franchise model, which would've meant trading Fielder and Hart and not trading for Greinke and Marcum, but if you're going to go "all in," you have to be ready to get "all out."

[TooLiveBrew]

Honestly I genuinely don't understand how anyone can make the argument that the path Melvin & Attanasio decided to go down was either all that successful, or the only/best choice. I don't mean that in a condescending way -- I just really am unable to analyze the organization & come to that conclusion.

I don't think it is that hard to argue that they were successful especially when just analyzing the past performance of this organization and lack of success. It would have been nice to go to a World Series but from 83-2007 they had no playoffs and not many players that they could market after they retire if any. They have now gone to the playoffs 2 out of 5 years and have future Brewer Hall of Famers in Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart and potentially others. Plus they have a guy in Braun that they can trot out over the next 50 years for a cheap pop and will likely be only the third Brewer hall of famer ever. I honestly don't understand how anybody that watched Brewers baseball in the 90's or early 2000's could say they were not successful. We always want more and they could always be more successful but generally Attanasio has put out a good product since becoming an owner and this is likely just a bump in the road and not a repeat of the Selig years.

I appreciate your thoughtful response.

 

So I realize the main difference is in how "success" is being defined. I agree 100% that, in the context of how relatively poor of a franchise the Brewers have been, two relatively close postseason appearances can be called success. However, my personal definition of success isn't tied to the franchise's unfortunate history of futility -- for me, we simply had two also-ran postseason appearances. They were absolutely fun, but for me at least in 2011 there was also an accompanying feeling of concern about what the team & organization would look like in just a couple or few short seasons -- kind of this sense that they needed to go all the way, otherwise the future-mortgaging wouldn't be worth the risk.

 

And I think 3and2Fastball made a great point about how the org. didn't really go all-in, and left some glaring holes on the roster. I would've felt better about an all-in plan if it had truly been "all-in," & not "almost-all-in."

 

I grew up watching the Brewers of the late '80s into the '90s, and definitely lived through some of the darkest years of this franchise's existence. But that doesn't mean that I want to see the team run with the mentality that something is better than nothing. We can do better, and I want to see the organization do everything in its power to do so.

[trwi7]

Doug Melvin is doing an interview on WSSP right now. It is depressing to listen to him. I'll post it when they put it on their website.

[The stache]

I still don''t have an Issue with Loshe signing because their is no gurantee that our pick would turn about to be anything especially with their past history . The Brewers need to make that shift with their draft because that where is the major Fault.

 

You're right, there is no guarantee that the pick would have resulted in a viable player for our franchise. But what is now guaranteed is that we have committed $33 million for three years to a pitcher that will be 35 in October. That pitcher is now 1-6 with a 4.37 ERA, and a 1.324 WHIP a year after he was 16-3 with a 2.86 ERA and a 1.090 WHIP.

 

So yes, there's a chance that we could have drafted a real nobody. There's also a chance we could have drafted the next Shelby Miller, or Michael Wacha, and retained his service for a comparatively modest amount. Instead, we have wrapped the rope around our neck, and the noose is tightening.

 

Kyle's $11 million represents nearly 1/8, or 12.5% of our entire $88,837,366 salary for 2013. That money could have been better spent elsewhere.

[3and2Fastball]

Doug Melvin is doing an interview on WSSP right now. It is depressing to listen to him. I'll post it when they put it on their website.

 

Thank you in advance for posting it. I shudder to think of the general theme. Is it along the lines of "we feel we are better than this, we've just had some players under-perform, we'll get better"

[adambr2]

Melvin: (paraphrasing) "We have so many good pieces with Segura, Gomez, and Braun, that if we go out and find another pitcher, maybe a team that another one has given up on, and develop him, we should be fine."

 

Yeah. Because we're clearly one piece away, and we have a ton of past success taking talented started pitchers that haven't figured it out elsewhere and developing them.

 

He did make a reference to getting better for "the future", which gives me hope that he understands the reality that there is no more playing for this year.

[trwi7]

Sparky (one of the hosts who is on vacation) texted in a question to ask. It was about Carlos Rodon. Melvin says "I don't remember the name."

[adambr2]

Sparky (one of the hosts who is on vacation) texted in a question to ask. It was about Carlos Rodon. Melvin says "I don't remember the name."

 

It's comforting to know that our GM does not recognize the name of the likely 1st overall pick in next year's draft. Particularly when he himself (Melvin) drafted him in the 16th round a few years ago.

[logan82]

Amazingly similar stats for the Brewers Rays from 2008 to 2012:

 

Brewers offense scored 3782 runs, hit .260/.330/.429

Rays offense scored 3783 runs, hit .251/.331/.412

 

Brewers pitching ERA 4.23, FIP 4.16, xFIP 4.01 with 7.6k/9 and 3.3 bb/9 .298 BABIP against

Rays pitching ERA 3.74, FIP 4.04, xFIP 4.05 with 7.4k/9 and 3.1 bb/9 .277 BABIP against

Offense is better in the AL than the NL. You have to take into account the DH. Opposite with the pitching. That means the Rays pitching had significantly better results.

[xisxisxis]

It's comforting to know that our GM does not recognize the name of the likely 1st overall pick in next year's draft.

 

I'm not at all surprised. I am sure the brewers talent evaluators (you know the ones that keep drafting crap) have Rodon ranked less than 100 on there rankings and we can't expect Doug to remember that many prospects.....

[Eye Black]

Sparky (one of the hosts who is on vacation) texted in a question to ask. It was about Carlos Rodon. Melvin says "I don't remember the name."

This is a joke right? If this is true it might signal my most disheartening moment to date as a Brewers fan.

[bill hAll Star]

How exactly have they mortgaged the future?

Take a look at the MLB product on the field along with the farm system.

 

And the old 'the prospects we traded didn't pan out anyway' line is one of those repeated lines I was referring to earlier. As this point has repeatedly been answered -- there was nothing limiting the Brewers to trading for stopgaps instead of identifying other young talent.

 

 

TLB, you are probably the most knowledgeable guy on here, so I tread with caution. I wanted Melvin fired as soon as the ink dried on the Suppan contract. Another poster is also correct that they failed the "all in" by not going completely all in.

 

That said, what is wrong with the argument of "none of those guys panned out"? Taking any involvement Melvin would have with drafting/developing out, he has won most of these trades handily.

 

Given the crop of Braun/Fielder/Weeks/Hardy/Hart/Odorizzi/LaPorta/Lawrie/Cain/Escobar/Brantley/etc. etc. he has gotten full service out of the good ones and has traded away the lesser ones for better veteran players.

 

As the earlier poster noted, Odorizzi would be nice to have and Cain/Brantley are 4th OFers. Escobar is good but we got Segura in that trading sequence. Hardy was sold low but it netted Gomez.

 

Great organizations like the Cards focus on drafting and developing and always have an eye on younger players.

 

So far, Melvin has not traded Fielder, Weeks, Braun, Hart, and now A-Ram (I'm sure several other vets in years that we were not in it).

 

Assuming he traded Fielder for a pitching haul before 2011 or something or he was "patient" and didn't deal Lawrie (we probably still did lose that trade) where are we sitting right now? I'm thinking Melvin is in the same seat as Dayton Moore making a very iffy trade to save his job because the crop of prospects has netted minimal MLB success.

 

What sort of moves should the team have made to have seen some 2008-2011 success AND be playing with plenty of cards in the deck today, assuming that the drafting/developing under Melvin were the same?

[Thurston Fluff]

Great organizations like the Cards focus on drafting and developing and always have an eye on younger players.

 

They also do other things well. Such as find players like Carpenter. Lohse trade for Furcal and get older players that seem washed up to play well. I don't think it is any one thing that makes an organization great. I don't even know if they do all those things better because they are that good or if they just spend more on it. Something I always wanted to see is a team by team comparison of money invested in scouting and player development. I'd also like to see the % going to marketing vs product improvement related endeavors. Then I might be able to assess how anyone in particular is really doing.

[TooLiveBrew]

That said, what is wrong with the argument of "none of those guys panned out"? Taking any involvement Melvin would have with drafting/developing out, he has won most of these trades handily.

 

Given the crop of Braun/Fielder/Weeks/Hardy/Hart/Odorizzi/LaPorta/Lawrie/Cain/Escobar/Brantley/etc. etc. he has gotten full service out of the good ones and has traded away the lesser ones for better veteran players.

 

As the earlier poster noted, Odorizzi would be nice to have and Cain/Brantley are 4th OFers. Escobar is good but we got Segura in that trading sequence. Hardy was sold low but it netted Gomez.

Nothing at all is wrong with the observation that very few prospects we traded away have panned out. What's 'wrong', for me, is to use that as a way to explain away how Melvin built the team. For me, the argument isn't, 'Our traded-away prospects by & large have not panned out, therefore Melvin got the better sides of those trades' -- it's, 'Why was almost the entirety of the prospect trading capital the Brewers have had over the past ~5 seasons ultimately burned on a combined total of roughly 4.5 seasons spread between three players?' Am I making the distinction clearly enough? I don't mean that snarkily, I mean it in that I know I can be pretty verbose.

 

In other words, to get to this...

 

What sort of moves should the team have made to have seen some 2008-2011 success AND be playing with plenty of cards in the deck today, assuming that the drafting/developing under Melvin were the same?

There are countless different trades that could've been pursued, naturally. Any one of us could go back & imagine a prospect package that could've realistically netted a young, cost-controlled pitcher or two, so I won't get into that. But the main point is that Melvin's trading m.o. was clearly to trade for short-term solutions. My hypothesis as to 'why?' is that he was uncomfortable trying to project which young arms would develop into top-of-rotation-caliber players, and instead felt more comforted by getting three pitchers for whom there wasn't much question as to how they would perform. That's all well and good for a half season here, or two seasons there, but then you're left with the same holes in your rotation & much less trade capital. He could have addressed the pitching rotation issues with better long-term planning, but that would have required more confidence from Melvin and/or scouting personnel in terms of identifying young pitching talent.

 

Additionally, he could have recognized the importance of pitching compared to a position like first base & attempted to really cash in on a younger Prince Fielder. But again, that would have involved uncertainty** with taking a stalwart bat like Prince's out of the lineup, and in correctly identifying which young pitching to target. The famous/infamous rumor involving Fielder was that the Giants supposedly offered up Matt Cain for him several seasons back. If the organization had been willing to go with younger players who didn't yet have the MLB Track Record™ like Cain, the possibility is there that they could have uncovered a pair of young arms that wound up as talented as Cain.

 

** It's all about balancing risk & reward, and Melvin operates as a very risk-averse GM. By no stretch am I suggesting that identifying & projecting young pitching is easy, but the good front offices in MLB can do it, and by every indication Melvin's approach was to not even try at the time of the Sabathia, Marcum, & Greinke deals.

 

Assuming he traded Fielder for a pitching haul before 2011 or something or he was "patient" and didn't deal Lawrie (we probably still did lose that trade) where are we sitting right now? I'm thinking Melvin is in the same seat as Dayton Moore making a very iffy trade to save his job because the crop of prospects has netted minimal MLB success.

This is the ultimate hypothetical in this discussion, and a great question. It's impossible to say, of course, but it's not all that difficult to come up with some plausible trade scenarios involving the plethora of young talent that, combined, was shipped out to bring in 4.5 seasons of service time of Sabathia/Marcum/Greinke. I have not done so in this post simply because it'd be a bit time-consuming, and also because each person can come up with his/her own 'what if' scenarios.

[trwi7]

Here's Melvin's interview. It starts at 31 minutes. Just shove ice picks into your ears when Gary and LeRoy talk.

 

http://media.sportsradio1250.com/a/75595731/05-31-13-big-show-3pm-hour.htm?pageid=911300

[brewcrewdue80]

Yowsas. Melvin points out the Screwover on CC compensation and not getting Trout. He says he doesn't recall Carlos Rodon's name which I don't get how a GM doesn't know potential #1 picks. Much less a player's name who you drafted and didn't sign who I'd think would still remain on your radar no?

 

And listening to the interview

TLB's comment:

But the main point is that Melvin's trading m.o. was clearly to trade for short-term solutions. My hypothesis as to 'why?' is that he was uncomfortable trying to project which young arms would develop into top-of-rotation-caliber players, and instead felt more comforted by getting three pitchers for whom there wasn't much question as to how they would perform. That's all well and good for a half season here, or two seasons there, but then you're left with the same holes in your rotation & much less trade capital. He could have addressed the pitching rotation issues with better long-term planning, but that would have required more confidence from Melvin and/or scouting personnel in terms of identifying young pitching talent.

 

Yeah I absolutely agree with that. I feel he's pretty much saying his philosophy is to find discarded pitchers other teams wouldn't wait to develop to perform. He makes mention of the number of teams that only have 2-3SPs on their rosters from developing and we have 2 so we're in line with League. I come away with that he doesn't have a grasp of how to implement a program to develop Pitching. And other things bothered me in the interview. Mentioning StL.'s ability to retain Molina/Wainwright/and another name I'm forgeting rather than losing them to Free Agency. Well hello? You've signed how many StL SPs now? Talking about Bailey/Arroya on Cincy and throwing their 5+ERAs a few years back to now being under 4. That He believes NO PITCHER can have a 2ERa in MP. Yet Sheets did so in 2004?

 

I just didn't like it. I felt like it was excuses/misdirecting information to answer the questions giving random examples for 1 team Stl/Tampa/Baltimore/Cincy to put what our current state is as exceptable with just an underperforming Big League Club.

 

Oh, and then the comment. In response to when does he begin thinking if he's a buyer/seller for the July 31st deadline?

 

I tell my players to go out there and give me a reason to trade for helping the team. In other words, His philosophy is to Band-Aid Year to Year to win today and not to think ahead long term.

 

Gomez isn't going to be traded after listening to this. And how about the mention of the Texas Rangers Prospect everyone looked at us getting but we identified Segura while this prospect is batting .150 in AAA. In Other Words, Mike Olt everyone. Just say it rather than obscure with suggestion of whom with a statline. And he dissed Profar! Saying Segura is better than him and our scouts identified his potential to be so.

I think Melvin feels being on the Hot Seat with some responses. The Free Agency part, talking about 2011/end of 2012 team, leading up to this year's performance that he's won the last 5years. Competed with StL./beaten Cincy it's like defending himself out loud to Mark A. While giving the excuses if fired as to maybe a future position to other teams.

I don't know, I haven't really listened to Melvin Talk before. Listening to him, it felt like he had a computer in front of him to pull up numbers/stats like we here at BF do for our topics/discussions and not somebody with a whole lot more Baseball Knowledge that a GM should just have.

[TheCrew07]

By playing the window strategy they actually made the playoffs and maximized the actual major league talent.

Based on what measure exactly? 2 playoff appearances? 1 playoff series win? What's the bar here for maximization? My bar is a WS, which clearly hasn't happened.

Had they kept slow playing it for the future the team would have continued floundering at .500 at best much through the prime years of Fielder and Braun.

Wait, so trading 1 or 2 of our MLB hitters for young impact pitchers automatically means we would have never been better than .500? Where's any factual, empirical, or historical evidence to support that notion?

Braun may not have been willing to sign a team friendly contract extension.

He signed his extension prior to Greinke and Marcum being acquired, what does Braun's contract have to do with either of those moves?

All of this would have just meant that the last 5 or 6 years would have been just more of the same, bad major league teams and telling fans to wait for the future which may or may not ever arrive.

Again that's just hyperbole.

The problem hasn't been them trading away overrated and middling prospects for major league pitchers. The problem has been the complete and utter lack of the team's ability to draft and develop pitching from within.

Actually the problem is exactly that short term solutions were consistently targeted, the roster wasn't turned over, nor was the prospect well replenished. Every successive move reduced the organization's talent base until the Greinke trade. That's precisely how we arrived at this point, I'm not sure how those facts can even be debated. A shrinking talent base is the exact scenario which leads to major rebuild being the only possible outcome.

 

Maybe you didn't see a season like this coming so soon which would be surprising given 2009 and 2010, maybe you aren't sold on the concept of young impact pitching. Regardless, Melvin knew the organization was short of impact pitching when he was hired, Melvin hired Seid after Jack Z moved on which hasn't proven to be a boon to the farm system, he's spent the majority of the teams budget on the MLB payroll leaving little room to sign international players, he knew his best talent evaluators were being cherry picked by other organizations and instead of looking to remedy the situation by acquiring some young talent he continued with the status quo.

[lukevan]

I guess I would say that there are 30 teams in MLB and "replenishing" the talent pool in the minors is more easily said than done. It is impossible for every team to have great talent in their farm system. How eager were teams to trade away their valued pitching prospects in the last 10 years, especially with the impact of Moneyball? Would the prices have been too steep and cost the MLB team opportunities to contend?

 

How many top flight pitching prospects were traded for and actually made an impact on an MLB club in the last 10 years?

[TheCrew07]

The Rays were about as good as the Brewers during our window.

If by "about" you mean vastly superior then you are correct. They competed in a much tougher division, in a much tougher league, which a much smaller payroll, have been much more consistent, won more games, and are still loaded with impact pitching in the minors.

The difference being in the last 5 years the Brewers haven't built up any minor league pitching despite plenty of draft picks and even a few comps. The Sheets/Sabathia debacle hurt but given the track record who knows if they would have done anything more than wasted those picks as well.

The major difference has been that one team consistently targets young pitching via trade, the other organization doesn't, neither has been good at the top of the draft. The other major difference is that TB continues to draft truly projectable impact HS pitching through out the first 10 rounds.

Had the Brewers shown some ability to draft and develop pitching they would be sitting just fine right now with a decent cost controlled offense and they wouldn't have wasted the money and pick on Lohse.

I agree, but since that's never been an organizational strength, why was the only way to "solve" that problem from your perspective trading for 3 very short duration MLB pitchers?

But again I don't think the Brewers problem is because they didn't try and trade their prospects for pitching prospects they would have just been awful for the last 5 years and may not look good now because of how bad they've been at identifying and developing pitching anyway. They could easily have just wasted the talent they got back or been fleeced by some team who knew what they gave up better than the Brewers did. Their problem goes back to failing internally to drafting and developing.

I don't think it's fair to make the leap that since the Brewers stink at identifying legitimate pitching prospects in the draft that the success rate would have been the same acquiring the better pitching prospects in the game at AA or AAA. Those players have just about completed their development cycle and are nearly MLB ready. I'm still somewhat amused that people believe a young pitcher like Capellan was an impact pitcher, we were dumping an ineffective former closer and everyone knew it, why would we get back exciting talent in return?

The Rays pitching has been better but it seems the defense has helped them a lot more than the Brewers and the Brewers offense has been better when figuring in the DH vs. pitchers component.

Why is the defense the primary reason for their pitcher's success? Wouldn't better talent be the actual cause? Not only that they've been significantly better pitching against much tougher competition and line-ups that feature the DH. The pitching isn't even close as it looks on paper.

Now imagine how awful those pitching lines for the Brewers would have been without Grienke, Marcum, Sabathia and instead more Doug Davis's and Braden Loopers, but with still no guarantee they would be sitting any better today.

What about other players that could have been targeted? Why were the options limited to either Greinke/Marcum/Sabathia or nothing? Nothing including the aging FAs that have been signed to "solidify" the rotation? What if we had acquired Marcum for Overbay in 2005, Buccholz for Hardy and Niemann for Hart prior to 2009? Would our MLB positional roster have been significantly changed? I would say absolutely not, but our pitching fortunes sure would have been and we would have still had the prospects to deal for other positions of need.

 

I've used the checkers/chess analogy many times, xisxisxis brought it back and used it in one of the organization building threads earlier. I think that's still the single best analogy about this situation... it's not just as black and white as we have a hole at position X so how do we acquire best MLB player Y to plug it? We should be trying to acquire the maximum of talent bought well below market rates. That requires making trades in unison to accomplish those goals, you can trade an MLB piece and yet still bring back another piece which will plug that hole. Instead we've paid a premium in prospects as well as salary to target the most expensive solutions possible.

 

Did many of you listen to Melvin's interview about the state of the franchise yesterday? He's still saying the exact things he was in 2006, and then in 2008, and then in 2010, and now in 2013. He's clearly not going to change, he's still hanging his hat on how many homegrown pitchers other organizations have in their rotation or how long outlier pitchers took to develop. He completely and conveniently ignores the reality of the Brewer's market and financial situation in relation to the rest of the league. He's still talking about the team playing well enough that he can make deadline moves. His only minor acknowledgement about his role in this mess was talking about being "caught in the middle" if you don't win. Isn't that exactly where we've been since 2007? The Brewers haven't been terrible but they haven't had enough talent to legitimately compete for a WS, how is Milwaukee's ongoing situation anything other than being stuck in the middle?

 

Finally for those who think MiLB development is the root of the problem, one of Melvin's cronies Reid Nichols has been in charge of that from the start, DM brought him with from TX. He's been drawing venom from some of us on the MiLB forum much longer than Melvin has. So again, if you aren't targeting the right young pitchers in the draft, aren't signing them internationally, aren't doing a good job developing the talent, and then aren't looking to acquire it via trade, what exactly is left? Shouldn't it now be obvious why Melvin has continually chosen middling FAs and short duration impact talent? Those were the 2 options that he limited himself to. He could have traded for young pitching but didn't, he didn't have to bring Nichols with him on the development side, he could have went have a different direction from the start. He was correct to retain Jack Z but didn't have to hire Seid, and he could have looked outside the organization when the draft started to stagnate some.

 

DM seems to be a genuinely good guy, he seems to care about his players and he's fiercely loyal, both of which are qualities that appeal to me on a personal level. However, those positive qualities don't excuse his limited strategic abilities nor his adherence to philosophies from the GM playbook of the 80s and 90s. He's not a forward thinker, he's reactionary, and he's not the GM of a market that can afford to be reactionary.

[Eye Black]

I hope Mass Haas doesn't mind I pulled his link of the Doug Melvin audio over from the Link Report since it starts right at the beginning.

 

AUDIO: A link to Doug Melvin's 22 minutes on WSSP today

Here are a few things from the interview that made me cringe:

 

Doug Melvin said referring to the Reds, "they gave up on Travis Wood" and shipped him to the Cubs.

 

Well in actuality the Reds traded him for a pretty good pitcher, but that is besides the point. Isn't Doug the last person that should be giving a team a hard time for sending away future talent to fill a current need? Not to mention, I don't think any GM should be referring to a player being traded as "giving up" on the player. He used that term a couple of times during the conversation. That seems like a very misguide way to refer to talent acquisition.

 

 

Melvin said in regards to players like Carlos Gomez who have "physical skills and physical talents" that "you never give up on them".

 

Brett Lawrie had physical skills and physical talents. Granted there were personality conflicts that led the Brewers to "give up" on Lawrie, but obviously sometimes you do trade away players with "physical skills and physical talents".

 

 

Melvin said "people use publications to determine top prospects".

 

He was basically inferring that people put to much stock in published talent evaluation resources. Interesting dig considering earlier in the conversation he highlighted the Brewers previous success by pointing out in 2011 the team appeared "on the cover of Sports Illustrated".

 

 

As was mentioned earlier, in the thread when asked about Carlos Rodon Doug Melvin said, "I don't remember the name".

 

At first I was dumbfounded by the (lack of) comment regarding Carlos Rodon. Then the more I thought about it I realized [sarcasm]Doug is actually ingenious. He is just "playing dumb" to throw other GM's off his scent. He took it to the extent of acting like he had no recollection of the Brewers drafted the kid just two years ago. Well played.[/sarcasm]

[The stache]

I was about to say "whaaaa?", but then saw the text was in blue. Nicely played.

 

I wish Melvin was that cunning. Ted Thompson he's not.