Doug Melvin steps down as GM; moves into advisory role

[FVBrewerFan]

Will Craig Counsell manage according to analytics? Will he be forced to? I'm asking because analytics not only applies to player movement, it applies to how a team plays on the field.

 

RR was supplied with this info, yet he chose to ignore it when he wanted to. Look at all the info we already have at hand. Defensive shifts, when to bunt, importance of walking, taking pitches. We could go on and on. Some of that CC can control directly, some he needs to instill in the players.

 

But, using bunting as an example, the numbers are clear. So does CC go with the odds every time, or have the freedom to go with "gut feel" when it suits him? Ditto for defensive shifts. Because you're defeating the whole purpose of analytics when you go with the odds sometimes and not others. (Similar to Black Jack, for those of you who play.)

[xisxisxis]

Imagine interviewing for a job and the dude who used to have that job is still there, but now he's an adviser to your new boss...... Yeah that's got to seem attractive to someone with no other options, but not to someone who is in demand....

 

I still have a small (0.2%) hope that the next GM may be the right person, I doubt with the cards stacked the way they are (meddling owner, franchise with a history of not succeeding, entrenched crapitude, and the guy you are replacing still there) you can say goodbye to the top 50% of candidates and pick from the group of Melvins that are left....

 

Yeah Brewers... keep on being there for other organizations to run circles around ya.....

[monty57]

Imagine interviewing for a job and the dude who used to have that job is still there, but now he's an adviser to your new boss...... Yeah that's got to seem attractive to someone with no other options, but not to someone who is in demand....

 

I still have a small (0.2%) hope that the next GM may be the right person, I doubt with the cards stacked the way they are (meddling owner, franchise with a history of not succeeding, entrenched crapitude, and the guy you are replacing still there) you can say goodbye to the top 50% of candidates and pick from the group of Melvins that are left....

 

Yeah Brewers... keep on being there for other organizations to run circles around ya.....

 

I agree it's an interesting situation with Melvin sticking around, but since there are only 30 spots available and most of those are filled, it would be pretty hard for someone to pass up the opportunity.

[1992casey]

Counsell is well versed as far as modern stats go. But that doesn't mean that the manager should always choose the in-game option that might rate as the best statistically. If he did that, his strategies would become too predictable.

 

I wouldn't be too concerned about Melvin sticking around. He's smart enough to know that an adviser's role is to offer opinions rather than pushing them and to provide information as needed. He's had former GMs in his front office; he should know the drill.

[TheCrew07]

Speaking of Reid Nichols, what is everyone's view on him? A lot is made about drafting and acquiring players, but what about Nichols job of development them? He's been around forever and it seems like there isn't always a plan or consistency with how players are developed. Will he keep his job?

 

I would hope that a new GM would clear out the majority of people at the top of the player development side of the organization, Nichols specifically. I want new people with a different perspective, not to mention I've always felt he was pretty terrible at his job.

 

The Brewers have done much better over the last couple of years as there haven't been any Brantleyesque scenarios where a legitimate OF prospect does nothing but DH and play 1B to get ABs and the woeful lack of defensive development has been addressed. However much like Melvin (probably not a coincidence) Nichols isn't a visionary, he's reactionary waiting for concepts to be proven relying mostly on what's been done from a historical perspective... the whole trial by fire or survival of the fittest nature of the minor leagues.

[FVBrewerFan]

cards stacked the way they are (meddling owner, franchise with a history of not succeeding, entrenched crapitude, and the guy you are replacing still there) you can say goodbye to the top 50% of candidates and pick from the group of Melvins that are left....

 

I don't agree with that at all. All teams have meddling owners to one degree or another. And frankly, none of us really knows how involved Mark A is or has been in baseball decisions, it's all speculation.

 

Entrenched craptitude? New GM would be inheriting a top 10 farm system and a current scouting dept that has done quite well, based on early returns.

 

Also, I don't think having Melvin there is a negative, especially if they're looking for a young candidate. They would view it as a plus to have Melvin around to lean on.

 

Bottom line, unless you're already a GM somewhere, this is a step up for anyone else in baseball. Even if everything you said were true, anybody would want a GM job.

[Baldkin]

 

That's a organizational philosophy, not a specific skill set for a player. Its not a coincidence how the Cubs went from a bunch of clowns to a 40 pitch inning team.

 

I agree completely. Jonah Keri said it better than me today:

 

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/mlb-seattle-mariners-2015-failure-prospects-jeff-zduriencik-mike-zunino/

 

One of the hidden advantages among the best organizations in baseball is that they all have a collection of ace minor league instructors and coaches. These people serve as key cogs in the development machine, and they can be hired and retained for relative pennies compared to the eventual impact they have on the big league squad.

[dlk9s]

I can count on one hand the number of teams in the major U.S. professional sports that an aspiring GM or head coaching candidate (read: one with no previous experience in the role) would consider rejecting because of a problem with the organization. The Brewers are nowhere close to being on that list.

 

I mean, you really think a guy who has been dreaming of GM job would say, "What? Doug Melvin is still going to be in the organization? Screw that. PASS."

[BrewCrew8682]

Will Craig Counsell manage according to analytics? Will he be forced to? I'm asking because analytics not only applies to player movement, it applies to how a team plays on the field.

 

RR was supplied with this info, yet he chose to ignore it when he wanted to. Look at all the info we already have at hand. Defensive shifts, when to bunt, importance of walking, taking pitches. We could go on and on. Some of that CC can control directly, some he needs to instill in the players.

 

But, using bunting as an example, the numbers are clear. So does CC go with the odds every time, or have the freedom to go with "gut feel" when it suits him? Ditto for defensive shifts. Because you're defeating the whole purpose of analytics when you go with the odds sometimes and not others. (Similar to Black Jack, for those of you who play.)

 

Still important to note that unlike BlackJack, analytics are not the true "odds" in baseball. They are an approximation that becomes more accurate over time. The players are however people, and the odds of a player getting a hit on any given night against any given pitcher exist, but they are unknown. I'd prefer the manager have some digression in making decisions, and if he sees someone seeing the ball well against a pitcher (or not) I'd like to see that factor in. Not saying I want a tingling feeling in CCs leg impacting who plays, but I'm sure a former player can see some things that we can't.

[Point Beer Is Best]

cards stacked the way they are (meddling owner, franchise with a history of not succeeding, entrenched crapitude, and the guy you are replacing still there) you can say goodbye to the top 50% of candidates and pick from the group of Melvins that are left....

 

I don't agree with that at all. All teams have meddling owners to one degree or another. And frankly, none of us really knows how involved Mark A is or has been in baseball decisions, it's all speculation.

 

Entrenched craptitude? New GM would be inheriting a top 10 farm system and a current scouting dept that has done quite well, based on early returns.

 

Also, I don't think having Melvin there is a negative, especially if they're looking for a young candidate. They would view it as a plus to have Melvin around to lean on.

 

Bottom line, unless you're already a GM somewhere, this is a step up for anyone else in baseball. Even if everything you said were true, anybody would want a GM job.

 

Agreed on all points. Melvin definitely adds value from a "let me show you the ropes" standpoint. He has an incredible amount of experience, and can offer insight into the tendencies of other decision makers around the league which will be invaluable when discussing possible trade deals.

[xisxisxis]

I agree it's an interesting situation with Melvin sticking around, but since there are only 30 spots available and most of those are filled, it would be pretty hard for someone to pass up the opportunity.

 

There isn't a huge base to pick from, you have the fired GM pool, the current GM pool, asst GMs, scouting/player development directors and maybe for a few orgs another layer. At best its 4-5 x 30 teams or 120 to 150 people in the potential pool to select from. Nobody is going to hire Bill James based on his books, they want people in the systems who have some experience with the details of the job.

 

So if I am in this pool at one of the top 10 successful organizations, I am not even applying to the Brewers and only entertaining an option if they call me. If I am in the middle 10 orgs, I am likely going to apply and of course bottom 10 then I am definitely applying. Now it doesn't mean that a good person can't be found in the 20 teams not at the top, but it will be harder to find that person.

 

Someone mentiond Mike Girsch earlier. He's in one of the top 10 orgs and is likely going to not even entertain the opportunity. Looking at it another way, if you are at Harvard as an associate and UWM calls and asks you to interview for a director position, you are going to say no thanks (no offense to UWM people) and wait for an opportunity at another IVY league school. Not much difference here.

 

Melvin definitely adds value from a "let me show you the ropes" standpoint.

 

It's been reported that young GMs comment that Melvin is hard to deal with because he takes so long to respond to texts and emails. If they are making those comments to reporters they are likely making worse comments when there isn't a reporter around. Dougie is a grandpa when compared to the younger generation, most of whom think he's a dinosaur. They aren't going to welcome his advise and if they are really good and have an ego they won't be asking for his advise. Baseball has changed a lot in the last 20 years let alone 40 years. I don't ask my grandpa how to setup my DVR and most young GMs aren't going to ask Dougie what he thinks about the latest metric or analytic.

 

It's also an inherent problem with the brewers and why they are a crappy organization. Setting up a new GM with the person he is replacing still lingering around is not a win win situation. It is a lose lose. How do you gut an organization where the person responsible is in the next office? The Brewers need to stop doing the right thing for the mediocre people they have hired and put good people in their place who have the tools to succeed. The Seligs ran it as a family shop and Attanausea is not doing much better.

 

 

Entrenched craptitude? New GM would be inheriting a top 10 farm system and a current scouting dept that has done quite well, based on early returns.

 

Where's Boise State in the BCS preseason rankings. Don't know. Don't care.... yeah there are flash in the pan organizations all the time that have a brief period in the spotlight while 99% of there history has been division II that nobody pays attention to once they disappear. The Brewers jumping in the rankings will be another ho hum to 99% of the baseball world when they fall back into oblivion where they've been for 43 of their 45 seasons... To make people notice you need CONSISTENT success, not every generation or so....

[jerichoholicninja]

xisxisxis only reason to live is to come to BF.net and crap on everybody.

[markedman5]

@BNightengale: The #Brewers are expected to hire a GM outside the organization, and 1 intriguing name surfacing is #Angels Scott Servais,a Wisconsin native

[FVBrewerFan]

The Brewers jumping in the rankings will be another ho hum to 99% of the baseball world when they fall back into oblivion where they've been for 43 of their 45 seasons... To make people notice you need CONSISTENT success, not every generation or so....

 

Even if all that was true, it misses the point. A new GM coming in doesn't care about the last 50 years or the next 50 years. They care about the next 3-5, and can they improve on the current record in that time. That's called resume building.

 

I just don't believe anyone would pass on being named GM of a MLB team, just because it's not a storied franchise. Look at Epstein, he took the Cubs job even though they haven't won anything in 100 years. Your analogy of Harvard vs UWM is way off, it's more like UW vs U of IL. Why would anyone want to be just another face in the Cardinals or Dodgers organization when they could have the title of GM?

[monty57]

Your analogy of Harvard vs UWM is way off, it's more like UW vs U of IL. Why would anyone want to be just another face in the Cardinals or Dodgers organization when they could have the title of GM?

 

Yeah, as down as I've been on Brewer management in the recent years, they are still an MLB franchise. It's not like we're the Beloit Snappers trying to hire a top executive away from the Red Sox. There are probably some people who would stick as the #2 or 3 guy at their current organization in hopes they'll get bumped up when the #1 guy is gone, but the opportunity to become a MLB GM is less frequent than the opportunity to step up to the plate in a World Series game, so if you get the chance, you take it.

 

Since you will (at least theoretically) be the guy in charge, you should be confident that you will be able to make the franchise successful. If you don't feel this way, then you shouldn't be a candidate in the first place.

[brewmann04]

Scott Servsis he is an ex major league catcher ?

[Jenkins5]

From the way it sounded during interviews, Melvin has no interest in meddling in MLB affairs, he simply get back to the thing he loves doing: being on the ground level. He is to the age where he just wants to do what he loves doing the most in a game he loves. He loves interacting with scouts, players, coaches while watching them all grow and develop. He has 40 years of baseball experience as well so it's not bad for a young GM to be able to reach out to him.

 

Mark A gets a bad rep for not much reason. He makes final decision because it's his money on the line. I haven't heard from anyone that he tries to call the shots. 1) it's a business an every owner wants to be involved and know what's going on with their company. 2) he has every right to give final approval. He has gone through a rebuild when he got here and he is open to another just doesn't want a long 5-6 one. Not all owners like to take that kind of hit to their product. Overall he let Doug do whatever was best for franchise, that's what good owners do. To expect any owner invest that much money to be a blind sheep is fantasy.

[reillymcshane]

Nice article by Dave Cameron about Melvin's ultimate downfall:

 

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/doug-melvin-milwaukee-brewers-gm-president-greinke-fielder-braun-weeks-hardy-sabathia-081215

 

Comes down to:

 

- Poor drafting - Nine 1st round picks between 2009-12 - only one (Jungmann has reached the majors). Nothing shocking here. We all know this history.

- Greinke trade not working out in the long run - Cain, Escobar and Odorizzi have combined for about 30 WAR since the trade. We netted 3.2 WAR from Segura so far (plus what Greinke did for us - which isn't mentioned). He acknowledges that the team knew the risk (and it helped us make the playoffs), but it stings to see how much we have missed out on.

- Trotting out too many terrible players - 18% of our ABs from 2012-15 have gone to sub-replacement level players - that's basically every day for the past four years 2 of our 8 position guys were worse than replacement level. That's brutal.

 

The last item is something that always has bothered me - the lack of depth. We ride things so precariously that if things go wrong, our back up plan is often junk. It's probably cost us a couple of chances to get into the post season.

[jerichoholicninja]

Scott Servsis he is an ex major league catcher ?

 

One is. The other Scott Service (two different spellings I believe) was a pitcher.

 

From the way it sounded during interviews, Melvin has no interest in meddling in MLB affairs, he simply get back to the thing he loves doing: being on the ground level. He is to the age where he just wants to do what he loves doing the most in a game he loves. He loves interacting with scouts, players, coaches while watching them all grow and develop. He has 40 years of baseball experience as well so it's not bad for a young GM to be able to reach out to him.

 

I imagine Doug's role going forward will be that he walks into the office every morning, has a cup of coffee, waves to a couple people, chats about what happened last night on The Bachelor with a receptionist, and is gone and on the golf course by 11:30.

[brewmann04]

Thanks for the feedback wonder if this also now means the End of Gord Ash and the other Asst GM with a new man being hired

[The stache]

Nice article by Dave Cameron about Melvin's ultimate downfall:

 

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/doug-melvin-milwaukee-brewers-gm-president-greinke-fielder-braun-weeks-hardy-sabathia-081215

 

Comes down to:

 

- Poor drafting - Nine 1st round picks between 2009-12 - only one (Jungmann has reached the majors). Nothing shocking here. We all know this history.

- Greinke trade not working out in the long run - Cain, Escobar and Odorizzi have combined for about 30 WAR since the trade. We netted 3.2 WAR from Segura so far (plus what Greinke did for us - which isn't mentioned). He acknowledges that the team knew the risk (and it helped us make the playoffs), but it stings to see how much we have missed out on.

- Trotting out too many terrible players - 18% of our ABs from 2012-15 have gone to sub-replacement level players - that's basically every day for the past four years 2 of our 8 position guys were worse than replacement level. That's brutal.

 

The last item is something that always has bothered me - the lack of depth. We ride things so precariously that if things go wrong, our back up plan is often junk. It's probably cost us a couple of chances to get into the post season.

 

Excellent article. When I think of where Doug Melvin ultimately failed this team, it comes down to our poor return on high draft picks (not just his fault), and the terrible replacement pieces we have put on the field (that is his fault). When Jeff Bianchi, Yuni Betancourt, Logan Schafer, Alex Gonzalez, Juan Francisco, Lyle Oberbay etc are getting nearly 20% of your team's at bats, those black holes will sink an offense, especially in the NL where you have the pitcher hitting. Far too often, the bottom third of our offense was inept at best.

 

The trades for Greinke and Marcum, while netting a playoff appearance, have really hurt this team in the long run. As Cameron alludes to, our team's fortunes would look much brighter with Escobar, Cain and Odorizzi still in the organization.

[rickh150]

Getting Greinke and CC were the right move...... Small market teams need to take their shot when time is right. Melvin did and the time was right to get those aces. We lost in the playoffs, yet the moves were still spot on.

 

By the way, didn't we also get Jeffress back after trading him away? Seems to me, although Yuni was not good overall, he was good in the playoffs in 2011. Also, with Segura ( Hellweg, Pena), the trade still looks fairly neutral to me.

[MNBrew]

Nice article by Dave Cameron about Melvin's ultimate downfall:

 

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/doug-melvin-milwaukee-brewers-gm-president-greinke-fielder-braun-weeks-hardy-sabathia-081215

 

Comes down to:

 

- Poor drafting - Nine 1st round picks between 2009-12 - only one (Jungmann has reached the majors). Nothing shocking here. We all know this history.

- Greinke trade not working out in the long run - Cain, Escobar and Odorizzi have combined for about 30 WAR since the trade. We netted 3.2 WAR from Segura so far (plus what Greinke did for us - which isn't mentioned). He acknowledges that the team knew the risk (and it helped us make the playoffs), but it stings to see how much we have missed out on.

- Trotting out too many terrible players - 18% of our ABs from 2012-15 have gone to sub-replacement level players - that's basically every day for the past four years 2 of our 8 position guys were worse than replacement level. That's brutal.

 

The last item is something that always has bothered me - the lack of depth. We ride things so precariously that if things go wrong, our back up plan is often junk. It's probably cost us a couple of chances to get into the post season.

 

Excellent article. When I think of where Doug Melvin ultimately failed this team, it comes down to our poor return on high draft picks (not just his fault), and the terrible replacement pieces we have put on the field (that is his fault). When Jeff Bianchi, Yuni Betancourt, Logan Schafer, Alex Gonzalez, Juan Francisco, Lyle Oberbay etc are getting nearly 20% of your team's at bats, those black holes will sink an offense, especially in the NL where you have the pitcher hitting. Far too often, the bottom third of our offense was inept at best.

 

The trades for Greinke and Marcum, while netting a playoff appearance, have really hurt this team in the long run. As Cameron alludes to, our team's fortunes would look much brighter with Escobar, Cain and Odorizzi still in the organization.

4 reactions to the article & the above comments on it:

 

1. Mostly agreed on 2 of 3 points in the article. Well, 3 of 3, in a way, but I don't fault Melvin for the gambles taken on either side of the Greinke trade. You win some & you lose some, which we all know, and the Royals have done better in the long run than the Brewers did in this particular case. But the return in trading Greinke was still 3 young players who might've panned out but haven't -- YET. However, at the moment I think we'd all agree it's not looking great -- though, for that matter, neither was Greinke in his time w/ the Angels. Then, for all the Brewers tried to re-sign him, LA just blew everyone else's contract offers out of the water. . . . On the flip side, judged similarly, the Sabathia trade worked out pretty doggone well. Brantley was in AAA when traded and took 5 years to start to play like an above-average MLB player, while none of the others amounted to anything. That's a good reminder that while some time has passed since we traded Greinke, there's still time that it could possibly turn out to be a better deal in the long run than it has so far.

 

2. How sub-par the drafting & developing went for quite a long time has been extremely well-dissected here. To that end, it continues to astonish me that people want to blame Melvin for the drafting "misses" when it's well-documented that the farm director runs the drafting process (even though the GM is in the room). I don't believe you can directly fault Melvin for decisions that were Reid Nichols'. . . . Nichols doesn't make the MLB trades. Melvin doesn't do the drafting.

 

3. In his early years as GM in MIL, Melvin had far more hits than misses with his waiver claims, scrap-pile pickups, and the "nugget mining" for which he was much-admired. But more recently the bottom half of the roster (position players-wise, anyway) seemed to have fairly few "nugget mining" successes and he put way too many, uh, really sucky players in a position to get significant playing time for far longer than they ever should've. In all fairness, part of the blame is also Roenicke's because he kept playing guys seemingly forever who weren't playing well at all. . . . But on the whole, I think this is probably his biggest failing of the last 4 years.

 

4. Dave Cameron's sub-headline summary contains two simple yet glaring inaccuracies that are irresponsible & unacceptable. The overall article's on track, but the prefatory summary is NOT. The text in question is this:

 

On Tuesday, another long-term general manager was relieved of his duties, as the Brewers have moved Doug Melvin "into an advisory role", opening up their GM position for the first time since 2002.

 

... 1) "was relieved of his duties" is often the lingo for "fired" and, regardless of that, clearly implies that the Brewers moved Melvin out as their GM, which is NOT what happened at all -- not to mention that he's STILL THE GM until a successor is named; and 2) "as the Brewers have moved Doug Melvin 'into an advisory role'" is equally flawed for the same reason, as it was Melvin & Attanasio who agreed on a transition plan months ago which they'd been talking about since last year (per every responsible report AND per Attanasio's 12-minute interview during the 3rd inning of Tuesday night's otherwise painful game), and thus with Mark A's blessing both the decision and the timing were Melvin's; BUT he's still the GM and won't move into the advisory role until his successor is named.

[Point Beer Is Best]

Someone mentiond Mike Girsch earlier. He's in one of the top 10 orgs and is likely going to not even entertain the opportunity. Looking at it another way, if you are at Harvard as an associate and UWM calls and asks you to interview for a director position, you are going to say no thanks (no offense to UWM people) and wait for an opportunity at another IVY league school. Not much difference here.

 

And how do you know that Mike Girsch wouldn't be interested? Is he waiting for Brian Cashman to retire or something? And there is a HUGE difference in using a UWM/Harvard comparison to this situation. You're talking about a situation where you have thousands of potential job openings, whereas MLB only has 30 GM's and usually there are only one or two to choose from each offseason. I'd counter that example by using historical examples from the NFL (a much, much better comparison). How did the Packers lure Ron Wolf to the dumpster-fire that was the very early 90's Green Bay franchise? How did the hapless Seahawks lure a young, up & coming talent evaluator (John Schneider) to Seattle? Easily - there were job openings in an extremely exclusive club that almost anyone in the industry would jump at.

 

It's been reported that young GMs comment that Melvin is hard to deal with because he takes so long to respond to texts and emails. If they are making those comments to reporters they are likely making worse comments when there isn't a reporter around. Dougie is a grandpa when compared to the younger generation, most of whom think he's a dinosaur. They aren't going to welcome his advise and if they are really good and have an ego they won't be asking for his advise. Baseball has changed a lot in the last 20 years let alone 40 years. I don't ask my grandpa how to setup my DVR and most young GMs aren't going to ask Dougie what he thinks about the latest metric or analytic.

 

Can you provide a link to that report? I'm just curious where it was reported that "most" young GM's consider Melvin a "dinosaur." I'm assuming you're projecting your beliefs onto a large group and speaking as though that's a factual statement... again.

 

It's also an inherent problem with the brewers and why they are a crappy organization.

 

I'm not the first, nor probably the last, to ask you this question. Why do you bother coming here? It's brewerfan.net, not brewerhater.net If you're jaded about the organizational philosophy of the franchise (as many here are), why not come up with your thoughts on how they could better themselves (as many here do)? You seem content to just come here and poo-poo everything.

[homer]

If you trade prospects for guys like Greinke you have to be able to replace them. You can't trot out Scooter Gennett and Khris Davis on a daily basis. The draft is ultimately where Melvin failed. Seems like that is turning around in the last couple of years. Time will tel.