mletto157

I'm thinking it's because Melvin & Macha really love the movie Bull Durham and think "Crash" really got a raw deal. Problem is Crash could actually hit the ball with some power and Kendall has no chance to hit a HR anywhere except Minute Maid.

Eh, I don't think his trade value was killed as much as you think. For the same reason that McGehee's value didn't skyrocket this season, JJ's didn't plummet either. GM's are smart enough not to look at only one season (or partial season) of data to determine value.

That would probably be a more accurate assesment. Though, I would imagine there are many more players in the MLB that will hit an extremely hard grounder or liner than in the minors as well.

True, but balls are hit harder and therefore come faster in the MLB than in the minors - with some stud minor league hitters as exceptions.

I think the rotation could have easily been at least good enough to contend with. With the offense we have we didn't need them to be the best rotation in baseball in order to contend. Had Parra pitched like he did last year, or I should be a little more accurate and say got the results he did last year (let's face it - luck has played a huge part in his terrible ERA this season), we'd be in a better position. Had Suppan not gotten hurt we'd be in a better position. Had Bush not gotten hurt, we'd be in a much better position. Looper was relatively normal, except for his ridiculous HR/FB ratio (which is also largely luck). These things are all abnormal things to happen to these players; and no one could have predicted all of these abnormal things happening in the same year. They don't happen and we easily at least contend.

Ouch, I smell a thread lock coming if this keeps up...

I guess I did see this wave of players come in and make the Brewers 10x the team they were before DM and these drafts. However, at the time they needed fans - and fans like offense. Once they got the fans they started drafting pitchers more... this is the point I'm trying to make. When building a franchise from the ground up, you have to start with something that's going to get fans to come to the games every day. Once you have enough fans to make money you can focus on the other team needs. This is where the Brewers were about 2-3 years ago when they started drafting pitchers. This is at least the way I'm thinking - and honestly I don't see a flaw in that. This is a business, and in order for it to succeed you need fans to spend their money. I completely want to see the Brewers do better, but the realistic expectation is that it can't happen overnight like in other markets. It most likely will have to come through the draft (which has definitely proven to be effective so far), aging veterans, or a buy low cantidate coming off a down year or a few down years. I believe last year was great for the fanbase and if DM sticks around there will be more of those to come. Remember the last time the Brewers made the playoffs before last year was 26 years ago. If DM makes the playoffs twice in even a 5 year span that will already trump anything any other GM they've had has done. And I honestly think he can do even better than that and at least make them a perennial playoff contender. EDIT: I guess I just don't see another GM coming in and all of a sudden making things much different. Nobody can predict the future so bad contracts are going to happen no matter who's at the helm. The less they play in the free agent market, the less bad contracts they'll give out and Melvin has done a pretty good job through the drafts. I think he's a good fit for this team.

All Ned Yost did was allow his younger, very talanted players to play over the crappy guys that were on the team - even when they struggled. Most managers would have probably benched JJ and Rickie long before Ned did. That's why he was the guy to get this team to where he got them to; but that's also why he couldn't take them any further. We needed a manager that knew how to win (not saying we found him), not one willing to live with his talanted players when they're not producing because he knows they are the future. Doug is an entirely different story because his talent evaluation is what got the players for the manager to develop. He knew what the fans needed to start coming to games - and got them big in Prince and Braun. After the fans were coming he's started focusing on pitching. As I said, the farm system we have is pretty talanted and balanced. Once these players start coming up we'll see this balance at the MLB level. Good talent evaluation can take you as far as you need to go; and that's why I think DM can take the Brewers to the next level as well.

By that argument Ned Yost should still be manager. I was talking about the relative talent levels on the roster and farm system now compared with then; the attendance levels now compared with then; etc... Ned Yost has nothing to do with this arguement. Like the other Doug Melvin thread, this thread is just a bunch of excuses about why it's okay for the Milwaukee Brewers to be mediocre. No, this is a thread about people having unrealistic expectations about an improving team. I believe your post pretty much summed up the reason why this thread was made.

Mr QL - were you a Brewers fan in the early 2000's? When DM took over, this team was a joke. I can remember t-shirts that said "Bring baseball back to Milwaukee!" If you can honestly look at the MLB roster and the farm system depth from the day he took over and compare that to what we've had during his tenure and still say his entire philosophy is flawed than you must really not remember those years. The Crew has come along way since then. We needed offense as much as or more than we needed pitching. First and foremost DM needed to get fans in the seats. The fans coming to the games allow for a higher payroll and a more competitive roster. Big hitters are sexy, so he got his big hitters and offensive talent a plenty through the drafts immediately following his hire. Once the fans had players to make them come to the games and the team was at least respectable, he could focus on drafting pitchers. And what do you know... the last 2-3 years he has since focused a lot more on getting and developing pitchers. Give him a few more years to see the fruits of his labor. Our farm system (especially AA and below) is pretty balanced and competitive right now, I believe the Brewers will soon be there as well. EDIT: Formatting

BUT - The Giants have killed Wilson this August. Multiple times he has been asked to pitch over two innings even. His velocity has dropped from the 98 MPH range at the beginning of the month to 93 at best in his last start. Every time it's nearing the end of a close game they bring him in. I can't look anything sports related up at work, but I'm guessing he's nearing 20 appearances in August alone, with some being multiple innings. I honestly think they might really want Hoffman to share that workload and give Wilson some rest. Especially if they've decided that this is their year to make a run. Plus they're system is loaded with prospects that we could use. Look what they gave up for Sanchez? I think Hoffman is definitely worth more than him if he keeps up the way he has been pitching.

I just heard from two separate sources that Bill Hall was traded to the Seattle Mariners! Edit - I don't have any details on what we get in return or any salary implications yet - just the initial information that he was traded to Seattle.

I agree that a salary cap like the NFL has will not work for the MLB. It's just not feasible. That doesn't take away from my point though. I think the MLB is working towards a system that will work for them, but it is definitely still a work in progress.

MJ - did you see that interview with him right around the AAA All-Star game? He talked about his time in the big leagues and how most teams only view him as a LOOGY, which really hurts him and his style because he's not a good one-batter pitcher. He said a lot of times he walks the first batter, or something like that, but then easily gets out of it. The problem with this is as a LOOGY he only gets one batter most of the time - so when he comes in and doesn't get that one guy out he looks bad. But he could have predicted that himself. He is not good at coming in for one batter. He likes having at least one whole inning, and probably more.

"After finishing the 2000-2001 season at 9-7, and missing the playoffs by a field goal in the season's last game, Lions owner William Clay Ford, Sr. hired Matt Millen, a former player and broadcaster, as president and CEO.""Over seven seasons under Millen's leadership as team president, the Detroit Lions owned the NFL's worst winning percentage (31-81, .277), never had a winning season, never finished higher than third place in the NFC North, and did not play in any post-season games." The Lions haven't always been the joke they were last year. Not even since the salary cap have the Lions always been a joke. The Lions became a joke when Matt Millen started running the show. He is a terrible GM and ultimately ran that franchise into the ground. This could have happened with any team in the NFL. The Pirates have been bad for far worse, probably also a lot to do with bad management. However that will never happen with the Yankees (worst offenders) because they can afford a lot of bad management and still overpay to field a winning team. In my eyes the thing the NFL has that the MLB does not is the ability for a small market team in the gutter to turn it around quickly. The last place teams in the league regularly become playoff contenders the next season, regardless of market size. You don't often see that in the MLB. In the MLB the only chance a small market team has of really turning things around is hoping bad contracts come off the books, and/or building through the draft (which generally means 5-ish years of more bad before these draft picks start making an impact). That's the largest difference in my eyes. In the NFL a large market team can either be good or bad depending on the season and the GM. Bad management can not be made up for by buying wins. In the MLB a large market team can buy wins, even with poor management and will generally field a winning team.

It's a curveball. Edit - Brawndo beat me to it by a long shot. That's what I get for opening articles and not reading them until later.

After reading through all of the comments here I will have to say I don't think there is such thing as a perfect system. I don't believe there is a feasible way for any professional sports league to attain perfect competitive balance where all teams have equal opportunities to sign all free agents, get all draft picks, etc... It just is an impossibility based on the different market sizes. Ideally all markets with professional sports teams would be the same size and would all appeal to all people near equally (though obviously climate plays a part in this too). Since this can never be the case we will never have a system without teams having some sort of advantage. Whether it's not having to pay as much to sign a player (NFL), or being able to pay more to sign a player (MLB). The only thing we can do is try to make the systems as close to perfect as possible with what we can control. To that end each sport would definitely have to be handled in a different way. Do I like the system the NFL has? Absolutely. I love watching the Packers every year knowing they should have a ligitimate chance at the playoffs. I like what the NFL did and think they definitely tried to make it as fair as possible for their sport. However, I in no way think the system they have in place would work for baseball. The differences in the sport itself, the differences in the number of games played, the differences in the amount of key role players, etc... would not allow the same system to work. I definitely think baseball has flaws that need to be addressed; and I believe they are heading in the right direction.

Well said Brawndo. Very well said. Plus, who couldn't love watching that 55 MPH curveball! I for one, loved every second of it. He really shouldn't be allowed to throw more than 15-20% fastballs though.

I don't know about that Funketown. The problem with a small sample is that if someone has one really bad game it completely throws off the data. Once the sample gets large enough you can then say if that really was just one really bad game from an otherwise average or even good defensive player; or if that type of game is a common theme and said player really is that bad. At this point all we have to go off in the majors is this year, but we do have minor league performance to go off too - and that data would suggest he's a pretty average defender.

Am I the only person that thinks McGehee is an awful third baseman defensively? I don't have any stats to back it up, I just have formed this opinion from watching the games. Probably. I would say he is pretty average there. Definitely not awful, but also not great.

I don't want to see this trade happen at all. This trade really wouldn't make the Brewers that much better this year, and it would cripple us for future years... Unless Bush pulls an end-of-last-year type of return this trade doesn't help us as much... Parra will be a good MLB pitcher - I don't think there is anything we have here that I would be comfortable giving up for Halladay. If they would want Hardy & some mid-levels maybe, but otherwise I just can't see liking any trade involving the pre-arby top prospects we have.

One of my biggest problems here is that we should be a buy low/sell high team. Felipe Lopez probably has the most value right now than he could ever have the rest of his career and probably more than he's ever had previously in his career. That, coupled with the fact that we didn't really need him makes this trade very underwhelming. We could have gotten him for a bag of peanuts this last offseason - instead we're trading two prospects for him. Granted, those prospects may have never had a future in Milwaukee, but still we should be going after something we need. Gamel playing every day at 3rd with McGehee most days at 2nd I think would have been more productive than Lopez every day at 2nd with McGehee most days at 3rd.

I was actually upset when I saw the lineup today. Coming out of the All-Star break with a fresh start and this is what you do? I was seriously thinking (probably hoping) that after the break they would have Counsell back to the super-sub roll he belongs in, Gamel at 3rd and McGehee at 2nd as our every-day lineup barring someone needing a day off. Especially since two games in a row Gamel started and both he hit a homerun. They reward him by throwing him right back on the bench. It's just eating at me. Play your best lineup already and put Kendall as low in the lineup as possible, preferrably 9th (though that's not going to happen with Macha - so at least 8th)!

Don't forget 7 IP/1BB, that's just as (if not more) important!

I'm glad he wanted to get back to the way he used to pitch (pounding the fastball). I don't really know why he thought he should change that anyway - there was nothing wrong with it. Pound the fastball that you're good at and mix in the other breaking pitches when you can. That helps him use one of his many breaking pitches as an "out pitch". He was really missing an out pitch earlier this year because he threw those breaking pitches so often they weren't throwing the hitters off balance. I think he should have more confidence now, even without this start, because he's doing what he's been doing his whole life. I think mixing up the type of pitcher he is was really making him lose confidence, and now that he's back to himself we should see the Manny Parra that threw the perfect game in AAA. The Manny Parra that had us hoping he would be a front of the line starter in the near future.