Brewers' Pitching- Why is it so bad?

[Oxy]

In a grander organizational sense--Why has it been bad for 30 years? Is it all just dumb luck that we can't develop pitching?

[reillymcshane]

In a grander organizational sense--Why has it been bad for 30 years? Is it all just dumb luck that we can't develop pitching?

Luck certainly plays a part. But generally, it's bad drafting.

 

Add in tight budgets (we never went much beyond recommended player slotting in the draft, we never spent much on scouting, we never invested in Latin America scouting), poor development of players (meaning when we had a good player, we didn't figure out how to get him to his full potential, or he got hurt from overuse, or something like that) - and then a degree of bad luck - and it was just a bad mix of things.

 

The drafting in the 90s was absolutely horrendous. Sal Bando took a guy projected by most teams to be a 2nd-3rd rounder with the 4th pick. Just nuts.

[Ennder]

In a grander organizational sense--Why has it been bad for 30 years? Is it all just dumb luck that we can't develop pitching?

Jack Z was really bad at drafting pitching so that explains some of it. Some of it has to be an inability to develop though since we haven't even developed many bullpen arms. Even if we failed on starters more of them should have been viable in the bullpen.

[DHonks]

Jack Z also focused on hitters early, with great success. As much as I love the temptation of a pitcher in round 1, it really makes the most sense to load up on hitters. They can always be traded for pitching. Or with enough young hitters, you can always sign pitching

[Boomer5]

It's one of the worst Brewer bullpens ever assembled and it's being taxed because we don't have a starter who can pitch 6 decent innings.

 

The offense has really done it's part but I'm not sure the plan for developing a playoff caliber pitching staff.

[Never Outhustled]

A lot of pitching rich teams find arms on the international market, and the Brewers have been almost non-existant there throughout their history. The problem reached its low point when Melvin closed our Dominican Academy. We're still trying to re-establish our organization in Latin America.

[Boomer5]

In a grander organizational sense--Why has it been bad for 30 years? Is it all just dumb luck that we can't develop pitching?

Luck certainly plays a part. But generally, it's bad drafting.

 

Add in tight budgets (we never went much beyond recommended player slotting in the draft, we never spent much on scouting, we never invested in Latin America scouting), poor development of players (meaning when we had a good player, we didn't figure out how to get him to his full potential, or he got hurt from overuse, or something like that) - and then a degree of bad luck - and it was just a bad mix of things.

 

The drafting in the 90s was absolutely horrendous. Sal Bando took a guy projected by most teams to be a 2nd-3rd rounder with the 4th pick. Just nuts.

 

Well he was a 3rd baseman who played at ASU so that's all that mattered. Even still he picked Sheets and we haven't come close to picking a guy like that since. Maybe Gallardo I guess. We simply don't draft or trade for young quality pitching.

[adambr2]

It's one of the worst Brewer bullpens ever assembled and it's being taxed because we don't have a starter who can pitch 6 decent innings.

 

The offense has really done it's part but I'm not sure the plan for developing a playoff caliber pitching staff.

 

I've been hard on our bullpen as any but it isn't even the worst of this decade. Remember 2012?

[Never Outhustled]

It's one of the worst Brewer bullpens ever assembled and it's being taxed because we don't have a starter who can pitch 6 decent innings.

 

The offense has really done it's part but I'm not sure the plan for developing a playoff caliber pitching staff.

 

One of the worst Brewers bullpens ever assembled? It's actually a pretty good bullpen, 10th in the majors in ERA.

[pacopete4]

A lot of pitching rich teams find arms on the international market, and the Brewers have been almost non-existant there throughout their history. The problem reached its low point when Melvin closed our Dominican Academy. We're still trying to re-establish our organization in Latin America.

 

I think it closed early 2000's and then was re-opened either the help of Salomon Torres around 2010.

[Sixto]

To be fair, we've traded every bullpen guy that could breathe the last two years.

 

The assumption was most likely it wouldn't matter.

No one could have imagined a competent bullpen could have us at a possible 30-11 record to this point. Just a guess of course

[Never Outhustled]

Brewers now 13th in the majors in pitching. Not a bad pitching staff at all. The staff was 3rd in the majors after the break last year. I'd expect continued improvement.

[homer]

I keep waiting for the Garza bottom to drop out. So far so good....

[DuWayne Steurer]

I keep waiting for the Garza bottom to drop out. So far so good....

 

 

It's very possible (possible.... not probable) that if the Brewers are still in the thick of things in July *AND* Garza is still pitching well (that's only TWO *if's*) that Garza will have more value to the Brewers pitching out the rest of this season for the Crew than as a trade piece being flipped for a marginal prospect.

[Fear The Chorizo]

To me it's more about flaws in developing pitchers compared to drafting poorly - coupled with unpredictability of pitching injuries derailing promising careers.

 

The Brewers had some talented arms never amount to anything at the MLB level due to injury (Rogers, Gold, etc), which many organizations do - it's not having any organizational depth of pitching talent that was being developed properly that has hamstrung the Brewers through most of their existence.

 

Not being able to pay top dollar for free agent starting pitching or relievers obviously hurts their ability to sustain longterm MLB pitching success - they also play in a hitter friendly park. The fact the one homegrown, drafted and developed "unicorn" starter had his best years during some of the Brewers' darkest (Sheets) before burning out makes Brewer pitching history seem that much darker. Gallardo was an effective #2-caliber starter that was developed, too. As an organization, they need to bring in ace-caliber pitching talent via the draft at least once every 3 years - that just hasn't happened enough.

[Ennder]

Gallardo's career was completely changed when he tore his ACL in 2008. He was never the same guy, never found that release point again.

[homer]

 

The Brewers had some talented arms never amount to anything at the MLB level due to injury (Rogers, Gold, etc), which many organizations do - it's not having any organizational depth of pitching talent that was being developed properly that has hamstrung the Brewers through most of their existence.

 

 

Very few organizations have prolonged success developing pitchers. And very few ex-Brewer pitchers have gone on to stellar careers.

[istanbultaye]

As an organization, they need to bring in ace-caliber pitching talent via the draft at least once every 3 years - that just hasn't happened enough.

 

There isn't even really 1 ace per team at the major league level, so to think that any team could draft an ace every 3 years seems to be a stretch. If you just mean potential to be an ace, one could argue that the brewers have drafted at least one every 3 years or more who had the potential, but have just not actually hit on any since Ben Sheets due to various factors already discussed in this thread.