Open for business (part 1)

[JohnBriggs12]

They are 9-8 after starting 2-13. The first 15 games were a hangover from last year. Anyone thinking the season is over needs to look at the 2012 Oakland A's. There's plenty of time to get to around .500 by the All Star break and nobody is going to start selling players if .500 by All Star break is still within reach.

[splitterpfj]

i actually hope the Brewers are at least on the fringe of the race in early July, just so I can watch the beautiful irony that is watching the team's most dedicated fans getting angry because they aren't losing enough.

 

Such wonderful theatre.

[pacopete4]

i actually hope the Brewers are at least on the fringe of the race in early July, just so I can watch the beautiful irony that is watching the team's most dedicated fans getting angry because they aren't losing enough.

 

Such wonderful theatre.

 

 

This. This is about as funny of a post as I've seen in awhile. I'll second it.

[SRB]

i actually hope the Brewers are at least on the fringe of the race in early July, just so I can watch the beautiful irony that is watching the team's most dedicated fans getting angry because they aren't losing enough.

 

Such wonderful theatre.

 

For me as a fan it is much more fun to watch an amusingly bad team coast to the worst record in baseball while maybe calling up a couple of interesting rookies whose development I can watch. Mediocre, roughly .500 baseball, #15 pick in the draft, etc., is beyond tiresome at this point.

 

Even if you got rid of every other team in the NL Central and the Brewers somehow made the playoffs this season, does anyone think this roster could win a World Series? It's not going to happen. Fans who only want to go to a Brewers game when the Brewers are winning are holding back the franchise. We need to blow things up.

[brewmann04]

What does 500 really acomplish?

[superfly]

i actually hope the Brewers are at least on the fringe of the race in early July, just so I can watch the beautiful irony that is watching the team's most dedicated fans getting angry because they aren't losing enough.

 

Such wonderful theatre.

does anyone think this roster could win a World Series? It's not going to happen. Fans who only want to go to a Brewers game when the Brewers are winning are holding back the franchise.

 

Yes, because Jeremy Guthrie, Alcides Escobar, Mike Moustakas, Omar Infante, Nori Aoki, etc sure looks like a World Series roster to me.

 

As for the "only when they are winning" comment, what exactly is that supposed to mean? Why yes, us Brewer fans want to WIN GAMES. We have the talent on this roster to WIN GAMES. It's the beginning of May for goodness sake, can we wait until June or July before we start the losing discussion? As another poster mentioned, look at the 2012 A's...good thing they didn't throw in the towel & wave the white flag on their season in the middle of May.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I think there's a lot of people confusing "wanting to lose" with understanding that the Brewers are in desperate need of a roster overhaul.

 

I do not, and would never root for the Brewers to lose a game. I do, however understand the intangible value a 60-102 season would have. It would absolutely FORCE this ownership/management group to understand that patching gaping holes with old, overpriced vets to "go for it" one more year is not a viable team-building option.

 

People say "well you never know if those young players will pan out!" as if signing guys like Aramis Ramirez and Kyle Lohse and Jeff Suppan has provided us ANYTHING of value whatsoever, as far as making it to the promised land. Doug's been our GM for how long? We've won one postseason series. Let's try something else for a change.

[Ennder]

I think there's a lot of people confusing "wanting to lose" with understanding that the Brewers are in desperate need of a roster overhaul.

 

I think a lot of people are confusing desperate need of a roster overhaul and that is the only way to go from here with thinking a roster overhaul is the best way to go. This team isn't desperate for an overhaul, it is just one viable path to the future.

 

If the team is sitting at .500 near the trade deadline there are really hard decisions to be made and anyone who says otherwise is just not being honest. This isn't a black and white decision.

 

Those who say it was a disaster to not blow up the team before last season and only winning 82 games even though it was due to most of the lineup getting hurt late proves it, are just living in denial.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Ok, I'll change the phrasing.

 

There are people who want to see a roster overhaul, and understand that losing will be the only way management will choose that path.

 

It's all aesthetics. Some people prefer their team building to be done via spending money on FA vets. Some people prefer to see it done through the farm.

 

Those who prefer to see player development will never get to see that done here as long as Doug Melvin is running the show. Those who want to see a "blow it up and build it from scratch" will never get to see their wish with the Moustachio Man at the helm. Unless a complete disaster of a season with the current (and healthy) roster shows him that what he's doing isn't working. (and even then it might not work)

[brewcrewdue80]

i actually hope the Brewers are at least on the fringe of the race in early July, just so I can watch the beautiful irony that is watching the team's most dedicated fans getting angry because they aren't losing enough.

 

Such wonderful theatre.

does anyone think this roster could win a World Series? It's not going to happen. Fans who only want to go to a Brewers game when the Brewers are winning are holding back the franchise.

 

Yes, because Jeremy Guthrie, Alcides Escobar, Mike Moustakas, Omar Infante, Nori Aoki, etc sure looks like a World Series roster to me.

 

As for the "only when they are winning" comment, what exactly is that supposed to mean? Why yes, us Brewer fans want to WIN GAMES. We have the talent on this roster to WIN GAMES. It's the beginning of May for goodness sake, can we wait until June or July before we start the losing discussion? As another poster mentioned, look at the 2012 A's...good thing they didn't throw in the towel & wave the white flag on their season in the middle of May.

 

I'll counter on the KC roster on the fact that it's not the Position players that we are looking at for a roster that can win a World Series. It's that KC had James Shields and a Yordana Ventura to head the rotation. Lohse/Garza/Peralta just aren't in that same mold to be relied on.

 

As to the A's of 2012. Their worst was 9games under .500. Milw already has reached 13games under it. Now, Milw has already climbed to just 10games under .500 and it's far earlier in the season, a lot of time to actually put together the same kind of winning season Oakland managed to after being 9games under. But Milw's pitching staff/depth is nothing like what Oakland possessed.

[adambr2]

I think there's a lot of people confusing "wanting to lose" with understanding that the Brewers are in desperate need of a roster overhaul.

 

I think a lot of people are confusing desperate need of a roster overhaul and that is the only way to go from here with thinking a roster overhaul is the best way to go. This team isn't desperate for an overhaul, it is just one viable path to the future.

 

If the team is sitting at .500 near the trade deadline there are really hard decisions to be made and anyone who says otherwise is just not being honest. This isn't a black and white decision.

 

Those who say it was a disaster to not blow up the team before last season and only winning 82 games even though it was due to most of the lineup getting hurt late proves it, are just living in denial.

 

We currently own the worst record in baseball, despite better recent play.

 

We have big holes coming up at 3rd and in both the rotation and pen next year, some without viable replacement options in our system. Our best player is realistically gone after next year.

 

While I could absolutely see us not selling if we're around .500 at the break, we really need to ask ourselves how much longer the Herb Kohl approach of putting together a team every year with a ceiling around .500 and hoping for a down year for the NL that will give us a chance to sneak in as the #2 WC is a smart strategy.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I wonder how many times teams have come back from 10 games under .500 to make the postseason, vs. not doing it. I'm sure the percentages are not in our favor at all. We can keep pointing at the 2012 A's, but someone doing it doesn't mean it's common or to be expected.

[MNBrew]

I still don't get the notion that the Brewers aren't developing players. True, they've not developed any superstars since Braun & Fielder hit the majors. But they're developing plenty of guys who are performing respectably as big-leaguers. Obviously the greater issue is the talent quotient and a lack of young or up-and-coming impact players. But to the initial point:

 

2 of the 3 OF starters are home-grown (Braun, Davis).

1 of the 4 IF starts is home-grown (Gennett) and another (Segura) was acquired for a high-end asset (trading Greinke).

The starting C is home-grown (Lucroy).

3 out of 5 SPs are home-grown (Peralta, Fiers, Nelson).

2 of the 5 bench guys are home-grown (Maldonado & Rogers).

 

Between the SPs and all position players, that's 9 out of 18 guys. Not shabby. The bullpen is cobbled together from everywhere as usual and has usually had a little better BFS (Brewers Farm System) representation, but it's had home-grown Kintzler & Thornburg & Wooten rotating in & out of one spot, plus Henderson's on the DL.

[LouisEly]

The 3rd OF starter was acquired for a home-grown player (Hardy).

[logan82]

I still don't get the notion that the Brewers aren't developing players. True, they've not developed any superstars since Braun & Fielder hit the majors. But they're developing plenty of guys who are performing respectably as big-leaguers. Obviously the greater issue is the talent quotient and a lack of young or up-and-coming impact players. But to the initial point:

 

2 of the 3 OF starters are home-grown (Braun, Davis).

1 of the 4 IF starts is home-grown (Gennett) and another (Segura) was acquired for a high-end asset (trading Greinke).

The starting C is home-grown (Lucroy).

3 out of 5 SPs are home-grown (Peralta, Fiers, Nelson).

2 of the 5 bench guys are home-grown (Maldonado & Rogers).

 

Between the SPs and all position players, that's 9 out of 18 guys. Not shabby. The bullpen is cobbled together from everywhere as usual and has usually had a little better BFS (Brewers Farm System) representation, but it's had home-grown Kintzler & Thornburg & Wooten rotating in & out of one spot, plus Henderson's on the DL.

Yes we have a roster of homegrown players. The problem is we need impact talent™, not just MLB players. We had impact talent™ when we were bringing up guys like Hardy, Fielder, Weeks, and Braun. The guys we have now are just guys.

 

I still believe Melvin can build a good roster and acquire good young players if he is allowed to do that. Since the Lohse/Yuni debacle of 2013 things have not been run to poorly. That was the low point. I don't mind the signing of Garza, which only cost us money. The draft the last couple years has really improved our minors league talent. They just need to realize this roster is not good enough to do more than hover around .500. They don't need to blow it up, they just need to trade a guy here and there to create a bubble of impact talent™ in the minors like we had before 2011 when they decided to decimate our minor league system.

[Ennder]

What does 500 really acomplish?

 

.500 at the all star breaks means a lot of the question marks that surround this team are trending towards the positive. Braun is probably hitting more like Braun, Peralta is probably pitching well, Nelson has turned into a quality pitcher. Ramirez or Segura has probably stepped up etc. This team has an extremely wide range of outcomes on this season, so far we have trended towards the negative which makes the decision easy but if we come on really strong it makes it very hard.

 

If this team is sitting around .500 when it comes trading time it is just going to be awkward all around. The roster will look too good to trade pieces away, it will look too mediocre to trade for pieces. We will have also done a lot of winning against tough teams because the teams schedule is still pretty brutal until the all star break. Part of it will depend on how dominant the other wild card teams look.

 

I also get a chuckle about the Lohse debacle comments people make. He's had around a 3.50 ERA as a Brewer outside of 3 bad starts to start this year. I didn't care for the last year on his contract but this is hardly a debacle. Suppan was a debacle but people who really got baseball knew that one would be.

[monty57]

I also get a chuckle about the Lohse debacle comments people make. He's had around a 3.50 ERA as a Brewer outside of 3 bad starts to start this year. I didn't care for the last year on his contract but this is hardly a debacle. Suppan was a debacle but people who really got baseball knew that one would be.

 

Melvin's strategy for signing aging veteran "name" players is to give the player one more guaranteed year than any other team is willing to give them. We then get a good season or two from the player, and the final year or two of the deal looks generally looks pretty bad. Lohse has surprised me with how well he aged up to the end of spring training this year. I hope he's just missing his spots and giving up HR that can be corrected. So far, he looks like the best 30-something free agent acquisition Melvin has made, but since he's a free agent at the end of the year I really hope they trade him. Unfortunately, he's not pitching very well, and while someone would probably trade for him now figuring this is just a bad start, if he's still pitching like this in July, we're not getting anything for him.

 

As to whether signing him was worth it, from his numbers I'd say he's been worth it. From the standpoint that it hasn't helped us to the playoffs, and at the time of the signing it looked like the team would be better off getting younger and not older, it wasn't worth it. How you view the signing really just depends on if you like the current approach, which to me appears to be signing "name" players to sell tickets and make money rather than giving them a good shot at the playoffs.

[Ennder]

As to whether signing him was worth it, from his numbers I'd say he's been worth it. From the standpoint that it hasn't helped us to the playoffs, and at the time of the signing it looked like the team would be better off getting younger and not older, it wasn't worth it. How you view the signing really just depends on if you like the current approach, which to me appears to be signing "name" players to sell tickets and make money rather than giving them a good shot at the playoffs

 

I simply do not believe in results-oriented thinking. If the Brewers offensive players stay healthy, we make the playoffs and get hot like the Royals and get to the World Series, it doesn't make the Lohse deal better. When we signed Lohse we had a team that was on the fringe of being a playoff team with players controlled for a couple more years so the wins per dollar was in the optimum spot to sign a FA player. I think people still somehow think that Lohse is just another Suppan when he was clearly a much better pitcher when we signed him and while he played for us.

 

I don't see any way to call the deal a debacle though.

[pacopete4]

Lohse wasn't a debacle by any means. People value those draft picks way, way too much. Lohse was a proven #2-3 pitcher and has done just that for us. A draft pick may never see AA in his career. It was a calculated risk and a good one. Plus it is a move that could pay off with another prospect(s) if Lohse can get his butt in gear by July.

[Fear The Chorizo]

It sounds insane based on how abysmal the Brewers' April was, but they are another 10 game 7-3 streak from being in the midst of the NL blob vying for a wildcard berth. Aside from the division leaders (Mets, Cards, and Dodgers), the rest of the NL is pretty much playing 0.500 ball.

 

It's still not even mid-May, realistically the Brewers have another month to figure out what the best gameplan will be - if firesale is the decision, they'd still have 1.5 months to make trades prior to the July 31 deadline. If this team has a solid May and early June and isn't blown away by trade offers for the veterans apparently available, I wouldn't be shocked if Melvin and co. hold onto their trade pieces until after the AS break - which will allow the rest of the NL to sort itself out and true playoff contenders to emerge. Right now aside from 3-4 teams, the rest of the NL has no clue who's going to be buying/selling.

[reillymcshane]

If the Brewers win 57% of the rest of their games it will reach 85 wins. Right now, that would put the team right in the mix for a wild card. Of course, outside of the division leaders, only two teams are above .500 (and barely at that with winning % of .515 and .530 each).

 

The tough part - only 4 teams last year won more than 57% of their games. For a club to win at that clip is pretty tough (over a full season it gets you 92 wins).

[monty57]

As to whether signing him was worth it, from his numbers I'd say he's been worth it. From the standpoint that it hasn't helped us to the playoffs, and at the time of the signing it looked like the team would be better off getting younger and not older, it wasn't worth it. How you view the signing really just depends on if you like the current approach, which to me appears to be signing "name" players to sell tickets and make money rather than giving them a good shot at the playoffs

 

I simply do not believe in results-oriented thinking. If the Brewers offensive players stay healthy, we make the playoffs and get hot like the Royals and get to the World Series, it doesn't make the Lohse deal better. When we signed Lohse we had a team that was on the fringe of being a playoff team with players controlled for a couple more years so the wins per dollar was in the optimum spot to sign a FA player. I think people still somehow think that Lohse is just another Suppan when he was clearly a much better pitcher when we signed him and while he played for us.

 

I don't see any way to call the deal a debacle though.

 

I agree it wasn't a debacle. As I said, at the time of the signing, it looked like the team would be better off getting younger and not older. That's not results-oriented. While the results do show that Lohse hasn't really done anything but help the team sell more tickets, it's not why I was against the signing.

 

I (and apparently Melvin from his recent quotes) thought at the time of the signing that the team went all-out in an attempt to win in a window, and the window had closed. It's just that the owner didn't realize it. The best thing they could have done was to make moves to get younger, but instead the owner insisted on continuing to spend a good portion of the team's payroll on aging "name" players.

 

As I mentioned, Lohse has done better than I expected. Most players have retired by Lohse's current age. That he defied the odds (at least up to the end of this spring, we'll see if he bounces back or if he's hit his cliff), and that is being used to justify the signing is being results-oriented.

 

As to last year, people can justify it with "if {enter excuse} hadn't happened," what happened did happen, and the team ended just over .500, which was still above pre-season expectations. They weren't expected to be a "fringe playoff" team. Most "experts" expected them to be just ahead of the Cubs in the cellar of the Central, where they had been for a couple of seasons. They played well over their heads for a month, poorly for a month, and around expectations (below .500) for most of the year. They weren't a "playoff-talent" team any more than a no-name prospect who comes up and goes 5-for-5 in his first game is a 1.000 hitter. Give him time, and he will show his "true colors," but with that 5-for-5 start, his numbers will look good for a while.

 

Lohse's deal itself isn't the problem. It is the strategy of doing that type move every year and relying on those players to be your "core" guys. Lohse's deal was the best of a "meh" bunch of "name" players signed too late in their careers to contracts that guaranteed them money for years in which they should have been retired. We'll see after this season if Lohse's contract qualifies for this category, as he's sure started the season poorly.

[logan82]

Lohse's contract was never the issue. It was the pick we gave up. I have no problem with the Garza contract. Melvin has been making good moves for about a year. I have no problem with him going forward as long as he keeps doing what he's been doing. I firmly believe things like the Lohse signing are on Mark. I hope he gets out of the way and lets Melvin do what he needs to do.

[trwi7]

Lohse's contract was never the issue. It was the pick we gave up.

 

My major issue with the deal as well.

 

I also wished we would've traded Lohse this offseason. The numbers last year looked good but he was getting hit around pretty good his last 10 or so starts. Some of those went into gloves and his numbers for those games looked decent, others weren't caught and he got roughed up.

 

He still had solid value after last season, now he just seems like a we'll give you some salary relief and a guy that has no chance at a major league career while we hope he can maybe bounce back to be a #5 starter.

[brewmann04]

also that 17 pick could have turned out to be another Jungmann or Bradley.

If the brewers are not going to make the playoffs rather see them get a top 5 pick instead of a pick in the mid teens