Doug Melvin steps down as GM; moves into advisory role

[logan82]

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.

I know the argument is that he wasn't doing the drafting but he is responsible for who is doing the drafting.

[FVBrewerFan]

It's pretty simple. #1 led to 2 and 3. If they drafted better in he first round, maybe you don't need to trade for Greinke- and you certainly wouldn't have the depth problem. Horrific results from the 1st round year after year really hurt, still hurts today.

 

We have beat this to death, but I don't blame Melvin one bit for he Greinke trade. They could have won the WS that year if it wasn't for Marcum wearing down, and ha's the chance you take. A chance Mark A wanted to take as well, by the way.

[MrTPlush]

It's easy to blame him for drafting, but it takes a good 5+ years to even accurately gauge how good/bad of a job they did in any given year. So if you start drafting poorly in 2009 you won't know till just last year. Then suddenly you have a string of 5 poor years and you had no chance to change it. It is partially his fault, but it is an easy thing to just fail at since you need so many years to figure out how well it went.

 

As far as giving garbage players too many PAs I think that comes to Attanasio's need to compete every year in the past. The payroll was getting maxed out with so many bigger contracts that they were forced to take scrap heap players to fill out the roster. The philosophy to compete every year really forced this issue.

 

On the topic of someone not wanting to leave a top powerhouse(St.Louis) that is total BS and false. These guys all started at the bottom of the ladder and dream of being at the top. The example given (UWM vs. Harvard) is a joke. That is like comparing the Brewers to a high school baseball team. MLB team prestige is not that great of a difference from team to team. Everyone not a GM on another team would love to have the Brewer's GM job unless they don't want to be a GM in the first place.

[SoCalBrewfan]

MLB Trade Rumors has a post suggesting that a frontrunner might be Cleveland assistant GM Mike Chernoff; since the source is Gammons there's an almost obligatory Boston mention (fellow Princeton and Cleveland front office alum Mike Hazen) as well. Chernoff has been on the list of top GM candidates for quite some time; he's a development guy who's worked in scouting as well as analytics, and from what I read it seems like he'd be a strong choice. He declined to interview for the San Diego job, but some of the folks who interviewed there might also be on our list...presumably Hazen, Ng, our own SD Montgomery, maybe Eppler?

 

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2014/jul/17/padres-gm-candidates-eppler-hazen-ng-preller/

 

Oakland assistant GM Forst is probably high on a lot of people's lists but it sounds like he's being groomed to be Beane's successor?

[1992casey]

Had the drafts been better, the Brewers could have made those trades while still having players in the farm system capable of helping the Major League club.

[SoCalBrewfan]

Melvin always looked at trades as a means for both sides to get something they needed; he was never out to fleece anyone, but wanted to maintain good relationships with his fellow GMs, and so he moved talent to get talent. That the Grienke trade worked out so well for KC is both an indictment of and a credit to Melvin; we had the talent in the system to be able to land one of the best pitchers in the game, and in the long run those guys have looked better than many evaluators had projected. If the Brewers were completely inept at drafting and developing, how is it that they had future all-stars available to deal?

 

You shouldn't expect the second Grienke trade to have included as much talent as the first, given that it was essentially a rental deal, but I have to say that the package of Segura, Hellweg, and Pena looks a lot more discouraging than it did the day of the trade. On the other hand, the guys the Brewers sent out have essentially all reached or exceeded their projected ceilings, though Jeffress has taken a circuitous route in doing so.

 

I agree very much with the sentiments above that Melvin played a key role in moving the Brewers forward, but that he also probably stayed in his current role too long and that I'm glad to see a new GM coming in. I think Melvin redeemed himself somewhat with the Lind, Gomez and Parra trades, perhaps the Gallardo deal as well, but the roster construction for the last couple of years was truly baffling.

[LouisEly]

But the return in trading Greinke was still 3 young players who might've panned out but haven't

 

There are a few around here that very vocally (writtenly?) pine for the cycling of talent and trading away players once they near free agency/cross the 30-year-old threshold/etc. The Brewers did exactly this with Grienke... and the prospects didn't work out. That happens. Look at what the A's got when they traded Holliday to the Cardinals - two recent first round picks (Brett Wallace, Clayton Mortensen) and a recent 2nd round pick (Shane Peterson), and not one of them worked out for the A's. Yes, even Billy Beane fails on trades. This is why I don't believe in the "continually cycle talent" theory - a certain % of prospects will not pan out, and eventually the well will run dry. People point to the Rays, but much of their success and talent was due to top-3 overall picks (Price, Longoria, and Delmon Young who was traded for Garza who was traded for Archer).

 

You have to have money to re-sign your top players and take on contracts. Look at St. Louis - would they have won all those World Series if they weren't paying Wainwright, Carpenter, Holliday, and Molina well into their 30's? Would they have been to those World Series if they weren't able to take on the contracts of Carlos Beltran, Rafael Furcal, Lance Berkman, and others? Would they have made it without paying over-30 pitchers in Jake Westbrook and - gasp! - Kyle Lohse? They didn't win those World Series with a team full of under-30 players (and some who were under 30, such as Molina, had already signed big long-term contracts).

 

I think one of the things that hurt Melvin was how poor the overall talent level was in the 2003 and 2004 drafts, the two years that the Brewers had top-5 picks. There was no Kris Bryant or Mark Prior there in 2003, no Buster Posey, Mark Teixeira, or Zach Grienke there in 2004, and they also had to balance signability because there was no protection for unsigned picks until 2010. Once MLB implemented protection for unsigned picks in 2010, the drafts got much better: 2010 - Nelson and Thornburg are among the top 4-5 players drafted in those rounds, and Covey was a well-documented systemic (not Brewers) failure; 2011 - Jungmann, Lopez (the Bradley pick was not protected as it was the Covey pick from the prior year), 2012 - Coulter, Taylor, Roache is still only 23 (and Wagner in the 4th); 2013 - Devin Williams, went upside with Neuhouse (and Taylor Williams in the 4th). The 2009 draft was a failure at the top, but that year they had two things going against them - lots of people in new positions (their amateur scouting team had been raided), and no protection for unsigned picks. If there was a mistake, it was to give McFarland extra $ to sign in 2011 but not a couple hundred thousand more to Rodon instead.

 

No one is saying Melvin was perfect. But let's acknowledge that he didn't have the advantages that a lot of those "top-10 organizations" have.

[3and2Fastball]

I'm optimistic for the future of the Brewers. I think they have a chance to really get this right, getting deep into analytics & sabermetrics. Revamp the front office with young, smart minds. Revamp the farm system.

 

I think Brett Phillips is a tremendous prospect. They could get another great prospect in Round 1 of next year's draft, and more if they trade Braun and/or Lucroy and Lind.

 

Just gotta get the right GM in place

[xisxisxis]

MLB Trade Rumors has a post suggesting that a frontrunner might be Cleveland assistant GM Mike Chernoff...........He declined to interview for the San Diego job.....

 

You are clearly wrong about that last part. As several posters have pointed out in this thread, nobody turns down the opportunity to be one of the 30 GMs in MLB....

[monty57]

If the Brewers were completely inept at drafting and developing, how is it that they had future all-stars available to deal?

 

Exactly. The Brewers drafted a lot of future all stars in those drafts everyone complains about... they're just all stars for other organizations since Melvin traded them away in order to try to win in one season. I still believe that had we traded away Fielder and Hart after 2010 and not made the Grienke and Marcum deals, we would have traded away one playoff appearance in 2011 for multiple playoff appearances since then, and instead of going into rebuild mode, we would be fighting for the playoffs this year.

[monty57]

MLB Trade Rumors has a post suggesting that a frontrunner might be Cleveland assistant GM Mike Chernoff...........He declined to interview for the San Diego job.....

 

You are clearly wrong about that last part. As several posters have pointed out in this thread, nobody turns down the opportunity to be one of the 30 GMs in MLB....

 

 

To be fair, I said:

 

"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."

[homer]

It's easy to blame him for drafting, but it takes a good 5+ years to even accurately gauge how good/bad of a job they did in any given year. So if you start drafting poorly in 2009 you won't know till just last year. Then suddenly you have a string of 5 poor years and you had no chance to change it. It is partially his fault, but it is an easy thing to just fail at since you need so many years to figure out how well it went.

 

 

 

To a degree. I think three years after a draft you have a pretty good idea if the class is going to have any decent players or not. Some guys just click after four or five years but not too many.

[brewmann04]

I do hope the Brewers do look outside the team for a GM Fresh face with no ties to the Team. It does look like CC will be staying as manager next season . But you have to believe that he will be chaning his coaching staff which is good.

It might not be good news for The Asst GM like Ash .

The New GM hopefully will be able to make some trades to contine the process of bulding the farm. But we do need some of that talent to show at the major League level very Soon. Melvin to the Blame for the lack of high draft picks having any type of Impact but believe that fell on the Whole scouting System.

[Bombers]

But the return in trading Greinke was still 3 young players who might've panned out but haven't

 

I think one of the things that hurt Melvin was how poor the overall talent level was in the 2003 and 2004 drafts, the two years that the Brewers had top-5 picks. There was no Kris Bryant or Mark Prior there in 2003, no Buster Posey, Mark Teixeira, or Zach Grienke there in 2004, and they also had to balance signability because there was no protection for unsigned picks until 2010.

That's the key for me. Those drafts were pretty bad. Let's hope the 2016 draft is a good one

[markedman5]

From Heyman

The Brewers' stated preference for a young executive with an analytics expertise to replace longtime GM Doug Melvin should leave them with plenty of good choices, such as John Coppolella (Braves), Thad Levine (Rangers), Dave Forst (A's), Michael Girsch (Cardinals), Billy Eppler (Yankees) and Mike Hazen (Red Sox). Dipoto, who just took the interim job with the Red Sox, also would fit nicely (as would his two lieutenants, Scott Servais and Matt Klentak), and so would Josh Byrnes (Dodgers), who was previously GM in Arizona and San Diego ... The Brewers aren't one of those teams paying lip service to analytics, either. The Attanasios are big believers. Mark's son, an MIT man and hoops player, is a basketball analytics guys .. Melvin broke the Brewers' streak of 15 non-winning years in 2007 and went on to guide the Brewers to at least 80 wins in seven of 10 seasons. In the Mark Attanasio/Melvin regime, the Brewers drew 2.5 million fans every year since 2007, and three million three times, amazing in such a small market. So it was a job well done. You also have to admire Melvin for picking the appropriate time to step into an advisory role. Not everyone can do that.

[brewmann04]

Here hoping they get the right guy here.

[dlk9s]

From Heyman

The Brewers' stated preference for a young executive with an analytics expertise to replace longtime GM Doug Melvin should leave them with plenty of good choices, such as John Coppolella (Braves), Thad Levine (Rangers), Dave Forst (A's), Michael Girsch (Cardinals), Billy Eppler (Yankees) and Mike Hazen (Red Sox). Dipoto, who just took the interim job with the Red Sox, also would fit nicely (as would his two lieutenants, Scott Servais and Matt Klentak), and so would Josh Byrnes (Dodgers), who was previously GM in Arizona and San Diego ... The Brewers aren't one of those teams paying lip service to analytics, either. The Attanasios are big believers. Mark's son, an MIT man and hoops player, is a basketball analytics guys .. Melvin broke the Brewers' streak of 15 non-winning years in 2007 and went on to guide the Brewers to at least 80 wins in seven of 10 seasons. In the Mark Attanasio/Melvin regime, the Brewers drew 2.5 million fans every year since 2007, and three million three times, amazing in such a small market. So it was a job well done. You also have to admire Melvin for picking the appropriate time to step into an advisory role. Not everyone can do that.

 

http://i.imgur.com/TTGxY.gif

[WV Brew]

MLB Trade Rumors:

 

Nationals director of player development Doug Harris could emerge as the frontrunner for the Brewers‘ GM job, Cafardo writes. Doug Melvin, who has stepped down as president/GM to take on an adviser role, was the GM in Texas while Harris was an exec there.

 

Cafardo is a writer with the Boston Globe.

[PilprinBuddha]

Put me down for Girsch from STL. Below is an excerpt from Baseball prospectus in 2014

 

Candidate: Michael Girsch

Current role: Assistant General Manager (Cardinals)

Skill set: Girsch will get looks because of the Cardinals’ run of success, but the 37-year-old AGM with an MBA has the goods to back it up. He's run the Cardinals Baseball Development division, which oversees the team's impressive data management and analytics efforts. For as much coverage as "The Cardinal Way" got as a magic book of sorcerer's spells, the reality is that it's a boring technical manual on player development, but one that starts with the question "What do we know about what actually works?" In the front office, where understanding the process is key, Girsch's background fits beautifully with what's expected of the new breed of GM.

[dlk9s]

Something something Astros' passwords something something.

[1992casey]

Yeah, I have to wonder about hiring from the Cardinals organization until the hacking investigation plays itself out. You'd hate to hire someone and suddenly have him face a suspension.

[foamboy1]

Candidate: Michael Girsch

Current role: Assistant General Manager (Cardinals)

Skill set: Girsch will get looks because of the Cardinals’ run of success, but the 37-year-old AGM with an MBA has the goods to back it up. He's run the Cardinals Baseball Development division, which oversees the team's impressive data management and analytics efforts. For as much coverage as "The Cardinal Way" got as a magic book of sorcerer's spells, the reality is that it's a boring technical manual on player development, but one that starts with the question "What do we know about what actually works?" In the front office, where understanding the process is key, Girsch's background fits beautifully with what's expected of the new breed of GM.

 

I believe that Girsch's brother lives in Milwaukee somewhere and they grew up in Chicago - nearby. I'm not saying that would make a difference, but it might to Girsch.

[Austin Tatious]

Article on Doug Harris of the Nats. Looks like he has media contacts or an agent raising his profile. It's a nice puff piece. It claims he understands analytics but that's not his point of emphasis. He honestly sounds redundant of Ray Montgomery. I'm not sure why his crossing paths with Melvin in Texas would matter either as this is Mark's call. My best guess is Mark is looking for somebody else.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/personal-relationships-drive-nationals-assistant-gm-doug-harris/2015/08/16/ef2a76f2-4451-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html

[Austin Tatious]

Going anywhere near any of the Cardinals people right now would seem to be too poisonous. The stench of that scandal could be on anyone. You don't want to bring that contamination into your organization.

[patrickgpe]

Girsch seems like a great choice based on his body of work. The brewers have hired a search firm that i would assume could find out if there could be an issue with him and the scandal. It's why you pay someone to help your search. To say that hiring any cardinal employee is too toxic may be a little too much at this point. Brewers just need to get the right guy