How do we turn this sad franchise around?

[danzig6767]

If i was the owner i'd

 

1. Start researching GM candidates ASAP

 

2. Try to hire one within the next 30 days

 

3. Give that new GM time before the trade deadline to evaluate all of the players on the current roster and the minor league system.

 

4. Then let that new GM give me his opinion on on the state of the franchise and how best to proceed forward, including at the trade deadline.

 

5. Allow that GM the freedom to make moves, even if i might question if a move is something i'd do so long is doesn't involve spending extravagantly.

 

6. Allow that GM to hire the next manager

 

7. Allow than GM to decide who will run his drafts

 

Owners should hire general managers because those guys are supposed to know a lot more about baseball than the owner does, thus allow that guy to make nearly all decisions except those involving big money decisions where then i understand why an owner would want some input.

[fondybrewfan]

I wouldn't want to fire Melvin and hire some untested GM right now knowing that the decisions this new GM could make in the next 2 months could be franchise altering (Primarily trading guys). I don't think I could ever come up with enough faith in a rookie GM to be thrown into the fire like that. Perhaps their is a GM with some experience that could be had; but I have no idea who that would be. I would rather just stick with Melvin; he usually gets pretty good value on the trade market.

 

If we aren't firing Melvin I don't think it pays to fire RR. To me it makes no difference if RR finishes out the season or some random fill in. Who the heck cares in a terrible season. If you need to clean house do it this offseason well before the winter meetings.

[superfly]

Folks, can we hold the doom and gloom here for the night? All is well in Brewer-land. I'd really like to know where I can book my playoff tickets for this season...can anybody point me in the right direction?

[BuckyBrewer61]

Folks, can we hold the doom and gloom here for the night? All is well in Brewer-land. I'd really like to know where I can book my playoff tickets for this season...can anybody point me in the right direction?

 

PrinceFielderx1?

[trwi7]

Folks, can we hold the doom and gloom here for the night? All is well in Brewer-land. I'd really like to know where I can book my playoff tickets for this season...can anybody point me in the right direction?

 

Go to the optimism thread instead of telling people what they should post about.

[superfly]

Folks, can we hold the doom and gloom here for the night? All is well in Brewer-land. I'd really like to know where I can book my playoff tickets for this season...can anybody point me in the right direction?

 

Go to the optimism thread instead of telling people what they should post about.

 

 

Sheesh...well excuuuuuuuse me. I was only trying to emulate our brilliant owner after hearing him pump us full of optimism 24 hours ago. Apologies.

[danzig6767]

I wouldn't want to fire Melvin and hire some untested GM right now knowing that the decisions this new GM could make in the next 2 months could be franchise altering (Primarily trading guys). I don't think I could ever come up with enough faith in a rookie GM to be thrown into the fire like that. Perhaps their is a GM with some experience that could be had; but I have no idea who that would be. I would rather just stick with Melvin; he usually gets pretty good value on the trade market.

So if the team ends up deciding to be major sellers at the deadline, you'd rather that the GM you are eventually firing being the guy to make those trades and in turn saddling the new GM with the very important decisions made by the guy you are replacing? By that logic, if you wouldn't trust a new GM to make those moves, why even bother making a change at GM?

 

FWIW, i have full confidence that even if Melvin knew he was going to be replaced after the season and still asked to trade guys like say Gomez and Lohse at the deadline for prospects, that he'd do so in a very professional manner without any malice at all towards the organization.

 

That said, making multiple important trades around the deadline would have major long term impact on just how well a rebuild ended up turning out. So to me it would make much more sense having a GM in place who would be responsible for the decisions made in trading away players for prospects. That guy would own those decisions vs a GM on his way out the door.

 

If hypothetically Gomez and Lohse were shopped at the deadline, the packages Melvin would prefer could be much different than ones a new GM would prefer, yet if Melvin was the guy pulling the trigger and replaced after the season, the new GM would be forced to inherit the decisions which Doug made at the deadline, good or bad.

[lcbj68c]

Probably the best way to fix where we are now is for fans to stop buying tickets, as that will be what wakes ownership up and causes this change.

 

Ownership is awake. They just aren't doing what you want them do. Jumping off the bandwagon and not supporting the organization is not only "not the best way to fix things", it shouldn't even be a consideration.

[danzig6767]

Probably the best way to fix where we are now is for fans to stop buying tickets, as that will be what wakes ownership up and causes this change.

Ownership is awake. They just aren't doing what you want them do. Jumping off the bandwagon and not supporting the organization is not only "not the best way to fix things", it shouldn't even be a consideration.

Plus, a lot of people attend games simply because they like baseball, it's something to do on a nice summer day/night, many people love getting together to tailgait in a group as much as seeing a game, it's a nice thing for parents with kids to do together, etc etc.

 

Even for me, as much as i love the Brewers and baseball, when i attend games with a few friends, it's as much to hang out together and tailgait as it is to see the actual game. Hell, on a number of occasions when the weather was great, our group wouldn't end up getting into the ballpark until say the 2nd or 3rd inning.

 

So while a certain number of fans will most likely stop going this year out of protest of the direction the team has taken and some won't go mainly because the team is out of the playoff race, a lot will still go for reasons above, including myself. I probably won't go as often though.

[tmwiese55]

As David Puddy would say, you gotta support the team. Protesting like that might actually have the reverse effect you're targeting, it kind of shows ownership they were right to try and keep being competitive because when they start losing no one shows up.

 

Superfly, I appreciate the joke and bringing some levity to the conversation even if others didn't.

 

I think Fondy meant to just keep Melvin. I don't think he meant to let him make trades and then fire. As long as he and MA come to the realization that a shakeup needs to happen then you don't have to fire him. If he accepts it and wants to go the route everyone here is clamoring for, I see what Fondy means as Melvin's generally done pretty well in trades. Would still like to see some shakeup in the scouting/drafting/development staff. You'd only have to fire him if he puts his head in the sand and thinks adding someone like Juan Uribe and some mediocre pitcher will fix things next year.

[monty57]

As we look back philosophically, I'm not sure this crummy start really tells us anything. There have been views by some (articulately and consistently by TheCrew) that we shouldn't trade prospects and try and extend out the competitiveness. Others are in the "maximize the window" camp. The Brewers fit more in the latter. Was an '08 appearance and an 11 NLCS enough? Who knows. I certainly enjoyed it. It was a reasonable approach IMO, but there is a cost to it. Maybe if we pursued the former, we win 83-85 games a year and never sniff the playoffs. Perhaps we do just as well or even better with the Odirizzis and Escobars of days gone by and the future looks brighter. We'll never know. All I think we can reasonably say is if you make the trades and go for "higher highs" (and maybe 11 was that higher high), you should expect "lower lows" at some point. This has always been looked at as an end of the window year. The poor start has made it more obvious. I'm more philosophical about it. For the most part they've been competitive and exciting for 8 prior years. After 15 hopeless ones before that, I really enjoyed it.

 

It's time to regroup. Time to make tougher decisions. I hope they draft well. I hope they trade everything that isn't nailed down or won't help the team in 3-5 years. I'll still be a Brewers fan while they're doing it and I hope they do it well so I can enjoy them more in my retirement.

 

They way they did it may not have been everyone's cup of tea, but I don't think it was unreasonable. It's just time to pay the piper.

 

Good post. I fully understand why the Brewers did what they did in going for it in 2011, and I too enjoyed the playoff seasons. It's just seemed really obvious since then that they needed to go a different direction, and their actions have made our eventual rebuild deeper than it probably could have been.

 

Ownership is awake. They just aren't doing what you want them do. Jumping off the bandwagon and not supporting the organization is not only "not the best way to fix things", it shouldn't even be a consideration.

 

As I write this, I'm planning a bus trip for clients to a Brewer game this year. Not only am I not planning on "jumping off the bandwagon," I'm so long vested into this organization that I don't think "bandwagon" should even be in the vernacular. Many fans however will jump, which is why I think we'll see attendance drop. I don't think we'll go below the low two millions, but that's still a significant drop from last year's nearly 2.8 million and even from 2013's 2.5 million.

 

It may be sad, but I think the Cubs are a good illustration for this organization. For years they played with the philosophy that as long as they put enough talent on the field to get the fans to show up, they would turn a profit and it didn't matter if they usually stunk (by the way, during this period they had more success than the Brewers have had in their existence, so I can't rip them too much). It took some empty seats (and a White Sox WS) for ownership to decide they needed to "go for it." Their path in this "go for it" period really mirrored the Brewers' recent history. Then, as the winning stopped, fans once again stopped showing up. That is what made ownership (granted, new ownership) get introspective and realize what winning teams are doing in this "new" age of baseball. They didn't just rebuild, they rebuilt in the "modern" fashion that I believe will make them very good for a long period of time, not just a "window."

 

Attanasio seems to me to be motivated by ticket sales. I understand this, but I also understand that what is good for ticket sales may not be the best "baseball decision," and this line of thought could lead us to a long period like the aforementioned Cubs, where it's more about putting some "names" on the field so that fans will have someone to cheer for so they continue to buy tickets, and not really about winning. Or, they could do what the Cubs recently did, bring in a GM that knows how to rebuild in the "modern" style, and sell out to that style. A hit to the wallet would force them to make a choice, and one of these paths is the likely outcome.

 

If you think the Cubs are not a good example because of their market size, we don't have to look any farther than the Pirates. They're in the early stages of success for their "modern-style" rebuild, but they seem to be die-hards, unwilling to give up the future to play for a "window." It'll take a few years, but I am very interested in seeing how it works going forward. A concern is that they're both in our division, and it really appears to be shaping up that we have the "Yankees" (Cardinals), "Red Sox" (Cubs) and "Rays" (Pirates) forming in our division, and we're kind of floating down the river seemingly without a paddle. Hopefully we find our "paddle" soon, and steer the boat in a good direction.

[pacopete4]

If this team doesn't flop last season and gets into the playoffs, DM looks like a very good GM. Since they flopped, people who have wanted to rebuild, just about every season now have their gripes and can say we told you so. This team, even this season, could (have) competed for a playoff spot. It happens to be that they started the year about as bad as anyone can so we'll see how that plays out but I guess I'm tired of hearing how poor this franchise is set up. Too many people reading the bio's of the big franchises prospects and believing the hype.

[Ennder]

I don't really think a new GM has enough time to get ready for the mid season stuff, that almost has to be handled by Melvin. I don't recall ever hearing of a GM being fired this early in the season. Also Melvin has been way too good a GM to embarrass like that and I know fans as a whole would be pissed by it.

[FVBrewerFan]

I really think Melvin is going to step down after this season, or the 2016 season. Some signs are there, including the fact he hasn't signed a new contract. Would also partially explain why RR got extended a year. He doesn't want to bring in a new manager that the new GM has to inherit.

 

No way to know if that's what's going on here, but that would make sense.

[3and2Fastball]

I agree with monty57 that the Cubs are a good team for the Brewers to learn from, both in what to do and what not to do:

 

Great job with International Signings, Draft picks, trading away players for prospects, rebuilding

 

Poor job with: the Lester signing. Those are the contracts you want to stay away from, in my opinion (moreso perhaps for a smaller market team like the Brewers). Someone in the Cubs farm system should have retooled Javier Baez' ridiculous swing. I sense that for awhile the Brewers farm system had less than average coaching, but it is getting better. Still needs improvement especially with pitching development.

[3and2Fastball]

If this team doesn't flop last season and gets into the playoffs, DM looks like a very good GM. Since they flopped, people who have wanted to rebuild, just about every season now have their gripes and can say we told you so.

 

The reasons they flopped have everything to do with how Melvin built the team. Way too many free swingers, a manager who doesn't demand plate discipline or baserunning excellence, less than average fielding, fairly average starting pitching, a not thrilling bullpen, a historically bad 1B platoon from 2012-2014.

 

Sitting back waiting for 3 run HR's might have worked for the Orioles in the 70's but they had Hall of Fame pitchers and amazing defensive play in a pitchers park.

 

In keeping with the theme of this thread, all the above elements of team building are exactly what I do not want, moving forwards in order to turn this sad franchise around

[lcbj68c]

As I write this, I'm planning a bus trip for clients to a Brewer game this year. Not only am I not planning on "jumping off the bandwagon," I'm so long vested into this organization that I don't think "bandwagon" should even be in the vernacular.

 

If you eliminate the phrase, "go for it" and any other similiar phrase from your vernacular, I'll gladly remove "bandwagon" and any derogatory reference to you jumping from it. I suspect we have a deal?

[paul253]

The Brewers would be wise to move Segura this season if he puts up decent numbers. With Sardinas, Arcia and even Rivera all at AA or higher (and all off to great starts) this is a huge opportunity to move Segura to help solve a glaring hole at third base or starting pitching. Hopefully Segura keeps up the decent start and increases his value.

[trwi7]

Folks, can we hold the doom and gloom here for the night? All is well in Brewer-land. I'd really like to know where I can book my playoff tickets for this season...can anybody point me in the right direction?

 

Go to the optimism thread instead of telling people what they should post about.

 

 

Sheesh...well excuuuuuuuse me. I was only trying to emulate our brilliant owner after hearing him pump us full of optimism 24 hours ago. Apologies.

 

My apologies. I thought you were being serious.