Transactions/Moves You Want Back...

[GAME05]

My grandmother listened to every single Brewers games on the radio. Every single game right there at the kitchen table with the radio in front of her. And when the Brewers let Molitor go, she refused to listen to a single game after that.

 

I also remember some happiness that the Indians chose Brantley over Green. Green was also about seven spots higher on the Power 50.

[brewers4eric]

1. I was saddened and disgusted when Molitor left. At the time, I kept thinking about a statistic I had seen in the 1987 Street & Smith's baseball yearbook where they showed the team's record in games where Molitor was out of the lineup. It must have been around 10 - 40. I knew it was going to be a long time before we sniffed a winning record. They interviewed Molitor after his first World Series win with the Blue Jays and he made some comments about the series win offsetting some of the emotions he felt after he left the Brewers.

2. The Brewers were hung up on finding a left handed power bat when they traded Bichette for Reimer. I can remember Bichette having a cannon for an arm. Reimer looked like he needed a batting helmet to protect himself when he was in the outfield.

3. Cirillo was my favorite player at the time that trade went down, but I wasn't as disgusted as I was when Molitor left. The pitching was so thin, however, they I'm not sure how they would have replaced the crappy innings that they got out of Jamey Wright and Jimmy Haynes.

4. I can remember the Brewers using Craig Counsell as a late inning defensive replacement for Braun at third base. It reminded me of our JV baseball coach stopping a game to pull a kid from shortstop after he made three errors on three consecutive plays.

5. I think they attempted to trade Burnitz to San Diego for Phil Nevin, which would have been a better deal. The Brewers put way too much value on Glendon Rusch, who was one of those lefties that always seemed to find a spot on a team. I never knew why a team so bereft of talent would need a late inning pinch hitter like Lenny Harris on their roster.

 

Mike Brantley was my "pick to click" one year on the Brewerfan Minor League forum. It always seemed like he walked more than he struck out in the minors, plus I liked him because I am old enough to remember his dad playing for the Mariners.

 

I always thought the Brewers screwed up the players they protected in the expansion draft after the 1992 season. It bothered me that we lost Darren Holmes. I always liked his breaking stuff.

[Raw Biz]

Matty V. That is all.

[RobertR]

I know you have to give something to get something, but I would have liked to have kept Lorenzo Cain around.

 

The Cirillo deal was a massive disappointment. That wasn't even the worst deal of that offseason. Jose Valentin (w/ Cal Eldred) for the useless Jamie Navarro and John Snyder has to rank right up there. John Snyder wasn't even good in the minors. That and the Cirillo deal pretty much doomed Dean Taylor from the get go. (I suppose canning Taylor and helping force out Wendy Selig-Prieb were ultimately good things.)

 

The Greg Vaughn trade couldn't have possibly gone worse.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I can look at the stats and know rationally that Thomas was sucking hardcore, but in 1983 when the Brewers traded Gorman Thomas for Rick Manning, my soul was absolutely crushed.

[3and2Fastball]

Firing Ned Yost with a week left in the season was Bush League

 

Offering the contracts they did to Fielder & Sabathia was a mistake, glad they didn't sign

 

Hindsight is of course 20/20 but just imagine how much they could have gotten in a trade for Ryan Braun following his MVP season.

 

Not drafting Madison Bumgarner & Mike Trout when they had the chance is arguably their biggest mistakes.

 

Not firing the GM & Scouting Director who passed on Mike Trout & Madison Bumgarner is a mistake.

 

Not offering more for Jose Abreu.

 

Just imagine the Brewers with Trout, Bumgarner & Abreu right now!

[DuWayne Steurer]

I was thinking about some scouting/drafting things that we passed on, but the draft in MLB is so much more of a crapshoot than any other sport that I didn't really think it fit the bill of what the OP was going for. There's guys in EVERY draft that every team passed on that nobody thought would amount to anything, let alone first round stars.

[Thurston Fluff]

Letting Matheny become a FA instead of offering him salary arbitration was an under the radar bad move.

 

I loved Brantley's high OBP. The guy is one of the few players to come up through the system to actually take walks (and not strike out a ton). I thought he could be a .280-.300 hitter and get on base at a .350+ %. I never thought he'd be a 20 HR guy - maybe 10. But even a 10 HR guy who gets on base 35% of the time is pretty nice to have.

 

I remember at the time I heard Chris Bosio talk about him being the one they would miss the most on a radio show in Appleton. He specifically mentioned he had some power and I brought that up here. At the time we kind of all questioned that because he didn't show any power in the minors up to that point. Turns out Bosio must have saw something the stats, or amateur bloggers on a fan site, didn't.

[jerichoholicninja]

Matty V. That is all.

 

For the win.

[brewcrewdue80]

Molitor is a clear choice. The 2009/2010/2011 1st round Draft selections. Or for that matter the Kyle Lohse signing costing the 2013 1st rd choice. And 2012 is to be determined with Coulter hanging on hopes that the Franchise didn't waste 5 straight seasons of 1st rd picks on complete duds vs. serious talent taken near them.

2009: Nick Franklin(ss/2b)

2010: Christian Yelich(1b/of

2011: Jose Fernandez(SP) and Sonny Gray(SP)

2012: Joey Gallo(3b), Lance McCullers(SP), Jose Berrios(SP)

2013: Tim Anderson(SS)/Marco Gonzales(SP)/ or Hunter Harvey(SP)?

 

Imagine those names. Franklin could have been a Platoon bat for 2b/SS in 2015 as a switch hitter

Yelich would just reside at 1b w/o the need for Lind

Fernandez and Gray would be a formidable #1/2 SP on a playoff team.

Gallo would be the 3b replacement for ARam

McCullers could be a 4th SP option with upside or potential Closer

Berrios has the Appearance of being at least a solid #2 with maybe Ace potential.

 

 

Gonzales already made it to the StL pitching staff. Had 2011 occured no need for Lohse and he's had. Or Tim Anderson a solid looking SS. Or Hunter Harvey another SP with Front-Line capability. Can you even imagine that SP staff?

 

Fernandez, Gray, Peralta, Berrios, and Harvey in 2016? McCullers tossing 97-98MPH heat as Closer? Yelich to bat Leadoff at 1b? How about Gallo at 3b in 2015 and beyond in the lineup?

 

Yeah our 1st round draft choices of late are what I want back after Molitor's departure. So includes removing Lohse deal. Especially since it appears to not be providing the team with any replacement player in trade due to our poor GM's ability. Yes the man has provided the team with depth at SP, but w/o a Playoff appearance to show for it, all he really has cost the team is the pick, plus top 10 draft selections in 2014 and 2015 with his above avg ability earning more wins than replacement, and that in 2014 and 2015 for that matter has left the office with the lack of trading away assets(Gallardo/ARam/Parra/Broxton and so on) to rebuild for say 2015-2017 when the young prospects if selected graduated to the Majors.

 

Coulter/Jungmann and Roache have a lot to prove to make this rant a little bit null. But man, just an AS team with Gomez/Braun/Lucroy with Davis/Gennett/Segura and those picks instead. I friggin love Yelich and we passed on him to select Covey in 2010. Which if happened removes Fernandez I guess but leaves Gray. Which at least ends the whole Fernandez wasn't signing for any other team debate.

[yfinn6]

Firing Ned Yost with a week left in the season was Bush League

 

Offering the contracts they did to Fielder & Sabathia was a mistake, glad they didn't sign

 

Hindsight is of course 20/20 but just imagine how much they could have gotten in a trade for Ryan Braun following his MVP season.

 

Not drafting Madison Bumgarner & Mike Trout when they had the chance is arguably their biggest mistakes.

 

Not firing the GM & Scouting Director who passed on Mike Trout & Madison Bumgarner is a mistake.

 

Not offering more for Jose Abreu.

 

Just imagine the Brewers with Trout, Bumgarner & Abreu right now!

 

Can you explain to me how the Brewers passed on Mike Trout when the Angels selected him before the Brewers could draft him?

[Baldkin]

Firing Ned Yost with a week left in the season was Bush League

 

Offering the contracts they did to Fielder & Sabathia was a mistake, glad they didn't sign

 

Hindsight is of course 20/20 but just imagine how much they could have gotten in a trade for Ryan Braun following his MVP season.

 

Not drafting Madison Bumgarner & Mike Trout when they had the chance is arguably their biggest mistakes.

 

Not firing the GM & Scouting Director who passed on Mike Trout & Madison Bumgarner is a mistake.

 

Not offering more for Jose Abreu.

 

Just imagine the Brewers with Trout, Bumgarner & Abreu right now!

 

Can you explain to me how the Brewers passed on Mike Trout when the Angels selected him before the Brewers could draft him?

 

Yeah, it was Texieria's decision to sign with the Yankees that cost the Brewers their shot at Trout (who was drafted with the comp pick the Angels got, which was the higher of the two when compared to the Brewers pick they got from CC signing)

[MNBrew]

The Brewers letting Molitor go was heartbreaking. I knew why, but it was really hard to take. We really low balled the guy, basically forcing him out. I think we offered him a one-year deal for around $2.5 million (a pay cut), and he ended up getting $13 million over three years from Toronto. I can't blame him for walking. But it still really stung.

 

The age thing (Molitor was coming off his age 35 season) was certainly an issue. But the team was really more about cutting corners than being competitive.

Molitor had a FAR better 1992 than Yount, yet they offered Molly a cut and Robin a raise from their basically-similar 1992 salaries. Robin had been trending downward VERY obviously. The next year he'd lost so much bat speed that he hardly ever fouled any balls off to RF. Then he retired. Molitor's remaining 6 years were all epically better than any of Yount's last 4 (from '90-'93, Robin's BA ranged from .247-.264 and he OPS'd from .705-.717). Yet Molly deserved the offer of a reduced salary and Yount somehow deserved a raise? And this after Molitor had played in 155-160 games/year from '88-'92 except for except a 103-game year in 1990, and only hitting below .312 those 5 years in the injury year of '90.

 

I loved 'em at the time, but I'm NOT an '82 Brewers retro-sentimentalist in the least. There's no way anything but the Molitor non-re-signing was STUPIDEST OF ALL STUPID BREWERS MOVES!!!

[MNBrew]

In the name of Garrett Nago, Anthony Iapoce, and Jim Adduci (senior, of course!) -- sorry, just fun names to bring up from the prospect-followers eras of the past -- due to the inexact natures of drafting and prospects developing, I just don't think you can really get too down on the Scouting Directors over the years for some of the guys they drafted b/c that same criticism can be leveled at every single organization.

 

Going a different direction from trades made, these other thoughts come to mind....

 

- I'd love to go back & undo the Hammonds signing.

- To an extent, ditto for Suppan, though in fairness, on quick glance it seemed solid at the time.

- Ditto re: acquiring Franklin Stubbs.

- Ditto to NOT making a better effort to keep Brian Harper.

- I didn't buy the love for Matheny due to his toughness (as demonstrated by tackling 80-year-old Willie Wilson when he charged the mound in a ST game), but in hindsight he proved more worth hanging onto than the cast of characters who streamed through that position in the years after his departure (Greene, Cancel, Bako, Osik, E. Perez, Gary Bennett (huh? -- yeeesh!) etc., eventually also has-beens (as it turned out) like Estrada, Miller, & Moeller).

 

The Vaughn trade return wasn't stellar, but everyone knew he was asking for far more going into FA than the Brewers would pay. They got two promising (though inconsistent) arms (Florie & Villone) and an OF (Newfield) that was the 6th pick in the '00 draft and who hit over .300 in MIL post-trade in '96 . . . before a little weed episode and a lot of bad baseball undermined any further chances of him realizing his potential.

 

While it hasn't come up in this thread, for all who love to trash the Sheffield trade as a bungled situation, analytics as we know them now didn't exist then AND some obvious facts seem to get missed:

- Sheffield eventually insulted everyone & everything about the Brewers organization and the final straw was going after his owner (Bud) who always had stood in his corner, regardless. There was really no choice but to trade him in late ST of '92, and given that, the return was pretty good:

- Bones showed promise as a young arm that had already made it to the bigs, although it never amounted anything a whole lot better than promise.

- Valentin showed promising power as a hitter (albeit with a lousy BA), plus killer range & arm at SS (though an already-glaring track record as an error machine at the same time; witness his 51-error season the year before they got him).

- Mieske had been his league's MVP the two years prior to the trade.

In the end, Sheffield doubtlessly was the far better player. And granted, there were lots of layers along the way where the Brewers could've done a far better job handling Sheffield all along (starting out with actually communicating with him about their interest prior to drafting him -- one of many major Dalton or Dalton-overseen bungles in the whole Sheffield saga). But Bando, who was in a ridiculous bind thanks to Sheffield's idiotic selfishness & immaturity, made about as good of a trade as he could've at the time.

[adambr2]

I haven't seen it mentioned, but trading Jorge De La Rosa for Tony Graffanino was a pretty bad deal.

 

De La Rosa hasn't turned into an ace, but when healthy he's been a solid middle of the rotation guy for the Rockies for years -- probably better than that when you consider the ballpark effects at Coors.

 

Far too much to give up years of a cost controlled good starter for a rental of an aging platoon stop gap at 3rd.

[Invader3K]

I haven't seen it mentioned, but trading Jorge De La Rosa for Tony Graffanino was a pretty bad deal.

 

De La Rosa hasn't turned into an ace, but when healthy he's been a solid middle of the rotation guy for the Rockies for years -- probably better than that when you consider the ballpark effects at Coors.

 

Far too much to give up years of a cost controlled good starter for a rental of an aging platoon stop gap at 3rd.

 

In retrospect, I wonder if in the mid 2000's, Melvin was undervaluing some of the guys we traded, given some of the underwhelming returns.

[endaround]

Jorge De La Rose was not that guy for another two years. KC dropped him because he was so bad.

 

Brantley would have been a 4th OFer in Milwaukee. He likely never would have gotten a break out chance, and since his "break out" was heavily luck dependent likely never would have happened even if he got playing time this year.

[pete]

Melvin used to mention JDLR as a guy who turned into a good player. It sounded like a lament, but I'm not sure.

 

There's that truism that LH pitchers take longer to develop. If its true, maybe JDLR is one

[MNBrew]

I haven't seen it mentioned, but trading Jorge De La Rosa for Tony Graffanino was a pretty bad deal.

 

De La Rosa hasn't turned into an ace, but when healthy he's been a solid middle of the rotation guy for the Rockies for years -- probably better than that when you consider the ballpark effects at Coors.

 

Far too much to give up years of a cost controlled good starter for a rental of an aging platoon stop gap at 3rd.

Graffanino played primarily 2B for MIL, and did so quite respectably the 1st year before a significant injury (knee, maybe?) the next year permanently affected the rest of his career. Another injury made his presence quite serendipitous because of how well he came in & covered what would've been quite the void. Then the void the next year was his.

[MNBrew]

One more: When Graffanino was a FA after his 1st year and the Brewers weren't sure they could re-sign him, they brought Craig Counsell back to MIL. Then Graffanino decided to come back before Jeff Cirillo and there was then no place for Cirillo, who really wanted to return & should've, & who was still quite productive in his role in that 2nd go-round in MIL.

[pacopete4]

I think I'd take Jeff Cirrillo as our utility backup still today.

[AdvantageSchneider]

Going in a slightly different direction, how about not trading Nilson and/or Nomo when they were free agents and the brewers as usually were going no where. I was so mad when the trade deadline passed and they were still on the roster.

[RobertR]

I'm still kind of miffed that the Dean Taylor regime never gave Marco Scutaro a chance. A simple move like that could have bought them an extra year or two with J. J. Hardy.

[djoctagone]

ben hendrickson for maxim st. pierre. should've traded for ben hendrickson's father instead.

[Jenkins5]

Firing Ned Yost with a week left in the season was Bush League

 

Offering the contracts they did to Fielder & Sabathia was a mistake, glad they didn't sign

 

Hindsight is of course 20/20 but just imagine how much they could have gotten in a trade for Ryan Braun following his MVP season.

 

Not drafting Madison Bumgarner & Mike Trout when they had the chance is arguably their biggest mistakes.

 

Not firing the GM & Scouting Director who passed on Mike Trout & Madison Bumgarner is a mistake.

 

Not offering more for Jose Abreu.

 

Just imagine the Brewers with Trout, Bumgarner & Abreu right now!

 

Lost for words about the Trout comment. He was the Brewers guy and was stole the pick before us. I can't really fault a team for not drafting a guy they wanted that was taken before they were up.....

 

Bumgarner isn't a mistake. We got LaPorta who quickly became a top prospect in MILB and netted up CC Sabathia..... If we were going to list players that we missed picking in hindsight, that list would go on forever. If Mad Bum was so can't miss as well as Trout they would have been top picks in the draft instead of 10th and think 27th

 

Brewers made a very outside of tradition aggressive bid for Abreu. If they were beat out on a bidding war on a guy who has never swung a bat in America before, so be it. It was not a sure fire thing Abreu would be this good