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It's comforting to know that our GM does not recognize the name of the likely 1st overall pick in next year's draft. I'm not at all surprised. I am sure the brewers talent evaluators (you know the ones that keep drafting crap) have Rodon ranked less than 100 on there rankings and we can't expect Doug to remember that many prospects.....

That's funny. Hamels has a lower ERA and WHIP than our "ACE" and Hamels home park is a bigger hitters paradise. Hamels season is a nightmare as Gallardo's season is a __________ ? You fill in the blank. ("Frightmare" ?)

What I was referring to with Ben Hendrickson's dad was that he said the Brewers coaches were constantly messing with his mechanics and how he threw pitches. He said one coach would tell him to throw a pitch one way, and another coach would tell him to throw the same pitch a different way. Bouncing back and forth between the minors and majors he kept getting told differently how to throw pitches. Earlier this year I read or heard a report about someone who saw Bradley and jungman pitch this spring and they said they looked nothing like the pitchers he saw before the Brewers drafted them. I was shocked considering how short they were in the system, but it also is clear from their results that they are pitching like crap. Mixed messages is definitely one way to mess with someone quickly. Gotta believe their was something to Graham's claims even though the source wasn't so reliable.

Oakland made the playoffs in 2 of the last 10 years, I wouldn't say that process has generated much. But the Brewers 2 playoffs in the last 10 years process is better? Given that the A's spent about half the amount the brewers did in payroll over the last 10 years, they have a cost controlled roster and young high ceiling starting pitchers and many young hitting prospects I'd say their process is much better than the brewers.

maybe we should just restart this thread. my suggestion: Why are we so bad at developing pitchers?

It's only a 2 run game. Is that Brewer heaven?

Meanwhile, Michael Wacha, who was drafted in the first round last year for the Cardinals, is throwing a perfect game against the Royals in the fifth. Tonight is his Major League debut. So I looked up today when was the last time the Cardinals had Back-to-back losing seasons. You know them as a brewer fan and they've been perfected by the pirates. So it's not bad enough they turn water into wine and lead into gold, but they haven't had back-to-back losing seasons since 1975-76. YES! 36 friggin years......

It's hard to stay positive - but what else is there? alcohol.

It would be different if we had a future to be excited about right now, but we really don't. I actually see this as a positive opportunity. If this team was average Melvin would be given year after year to spend money on aging vets and the appearance of a chance at making the playoffs. With the team playing so bad it may force attanasio to clean house. It may not bring us a great GM, but I'd rather have the hope of a new day than the fetid smell from the current decaying management...

I think Roenicke in June is going to finally get off the Weeks band-wagon and have him ride some pine which can only help the team. Not to pick on you, but what is the basis for this belief. He rode a horrible Casey Mcgaheehaw the whole season in 2011 when he was a hacking mass god. If there's anything I have faith in RR it's that he will stick with a vet forever. Sure I expect more days off for weeks, but he won't be riding anything. My prediction 14-13.

It was also easier to keep a team together back then because the free agent market had yet to blow up. It was an era where teams colluded with each other to keep player salaries low. One has to wonder what this team would look like with both Greinke and Sabathia on it. That would have been possible if it was 1982. In one sentence you say it was easier to keep a team together back then and in another you wonder "what this team would look like with both Greinke and Sabathia on it. That would have been possible if it was 1982." Guess what, if it was easier for the Brewers back then then it was easier for the Royals and Indians too and they wouldn't have traded away either pitcher to the Brewers. It goes both ways. So while I understand your point, the point applies to every team, not just the Brewers. Seems to me that and fewer teams competing for quality players made his job easier as well. A GM still had to come up with ways of getting players and with less movement of players it actually made it harder to add components off the scrap heap. There wasn't a huge pool of talent that gets cut every year or non-tendered because they were too expensive. While I give you the point that the playing field was more equal back then, there were still significant impediments back then putting a team together without having to make a trade. There are more options today outside of having to trade a player. One almost achieved it? When someone almost achieves something that means he failed doesn't it? Yeah and saying a GM who has a worse track record is better is kinda bass ackwards. I think a man who build a 96 win team can probably build a team that wins a world series. After all a 95 win team almost won it. He built winning teams in 2007 and 2008 and went backwards for 2 years in 2009 and 2010. He took a 2011 team that won 96 and "improved" it to last years mess and this years mess. The benefit he had in 2010 to improve the 2011 team was prospects to trade for the key components to the 2011 success. We don't have them now so what exactly does the brainiac GM have in mind? I'm just saying Melvin is doing as well as Dalton did. Again, I just disagree. That doesn't mean I think Dalton was a great GM. The Brewers have been cursed with a lot of bad GMs, but I think Dalton is still the best they have had and Melvin is next. But really, there are many factors I would look at when trying to assess how well a GM has performed. Such As? I don't think either GM was great. The Brewers had a better record under Dalton and reached a World series. Those two facts are enough for me to rank Dalton above Melvin. I think Melvin is decent but if the Brewers can get a better GM, great. I just don't have much faith that his would-be successor would be better. There are a lot of clueless GM's out there. And I understand that I can't prove it, but with all the dinners Mark A always seems to have with aging starting pitchers before they are signed, I think he does some serious meddling at times. Oh I agree about the likelihood of another GM being worse, especially with Mr. GM-for-a-day as the owner. Melvin is as old school as they come and at some point owners are going to realize they need to start looking for GMs that actually know how to manage an organization properly and not just some old or washed up baseball player (I'm looking at you Counsell) who says all the right things but is clueless at knowing how to accomplish anything. There really is a lot of room to analyze the success and failures of draftees/prospects that needs to be done to refine what are the correct skill sets lead to long-term success and how to identify them. When a team still has scouts who say "he just looks like a ballplayer" then they might as well have a medical staff that treats a torn ACL with a dung poltice. Mat Gamel, Taylor Green and Jeff Bianchi were plan B, C and D. You are criticizing Melvin because plan E is Yuni? Exactly how many players do you think a team can reasonably afford to carry to cover each position? Green and Bianchi? Now your just making Fluff up.....

I guess it doesn't matter in the least that one team had a whole other layer of playoffs to get to the world series? And that's because of what? It's kinda implied in the fact that there's more series now. Give up? It's because a lot more teams get into the playoffs now than during Dalton's time. Twice as many. In fact only 1 out of 7 teams made the playoffs then and 1 in 4 or 4/15ths now make the playoffs. Using the old rules, the Brewers don't make the playoffs in 2008. It's harder to make it to the playoffs when there are fewer teams that get in than it is to win 2 series back to back in the playoffs. That's because you play a whole season to be one of 2 teams, while in the playoffs you only need to win 2 series in a row. Yeah "only" seems kinda easy, but no Melvin team has ever done it. Who cares? Point is they are/were both competent. Well one almost achieved the ultimate goal and the other has failed for 25 years. Is Melvin incompetent? No, he's just not the man who's going to build the Brewers team that is going to return to the World Series. He's had plenty of time and now we have a major league team that is as dysfunctional as they come and a minor league system that is in the bottom third if not the bottom 2-3 of all major league teams. For what? 1 playoff run? There's no quick or medium fix for this team. There's only a slow long process and as TheCrew and The Stache have pointed out the people in place right now are horrible at talent evaluation/drafting/player development. Oh so much wasted talent for 1 playoff series win.....

Texas never won until he got there and Milwaukee has been as good under his watch as any GM in the team's history. Won-Lost: Brewers under Harry Dalton = 1149-1062 (52.0%) Brewers under Doug Melvin (ignoring partial year he was hired) = 732-725 (50.2%) World series appearances: Under Dalton = 1 Under Melvin = 0 As good? OK......

It's no different than any other part of Melvin's managerial style, it's all straightforward and conservative, he doesn't seem to be a very complicated guy. I have always had the impression that Melvin is a very linear thinker who is playing checkers. We need a GM who can play chess and has the ability to carry on multiple options in parallel. I've said before, if the problem is Melvin, it's an easy fix. If it's Attanasio, we have to hope he learns that a team in Milwaukee cannot be run like the Yankees. The way I see it is that they are both a problem. Attanasio is an owner who wants to maximize revenues and profits. That isn't the best way to run a ballclub for the long-term. He also gets too involved in the daily running of the team and roster decisions. He's no better qualified at being a GM than I am, but he's there almost daily playing with his toy team. Melvin is so conservative it's like he's reading a 1950's era GM handbook when making decisions. As TheCrew pointed out he is often reacting to events and not understanding and addressing the weaknesses. 2009 and 2010 were lost years because he didn't understand the deficiencies of his starting pitching. 2012 and 2013 are turning into the same mess. He addressed the bullpen after the 2012 debacle. There is no organizational depth anywhere yet at one time we have 5 SS on the roster. I could go on, but my blood pressure is rising and I prefer to live another day....... Ultimately, there isn't 1 problem with this organization, there are many of varying levels of importance. As I have been saying for YEARS, Melvin isn't the right GM to run a small market team and he's way past his sell by date. I think replacing him by hiring someone outside the organization and the eventual changes that would ensue (changes to the coaching, scouting, and drafting/player development) might be what is needed, but there is no guarantee that will work any better. However, it's clear Melvin & Co aren't the answer. I am not sure that Attanasiiiooooh actually will make the right choice when looking at possible GM candidates so any change may not make things better, but I am 99.9% sure that hiring a GM from within would be a disaster....

Forget firing Kranitz. We need to sacrifice a virgin..... Where's Tim Tebow when you need him.....

Axford making sure his ERA doesn't fall below 9.....

Brewers putting on a clinic on how to waste a leadoff double....

Glad I missed this series..... Peralta throws way to many fastballs currently about 70% of his pitches this year are FB......that is just insane That's about the same as Shelby Miller is throwing for the cardinals. He's an elite prospect, while Wily is a Brewers prospect... Glad we woke up the Reds offense. They're a Votto as Votto away from making 3rd place the Brewers ceiling and if the Pirates finally don't fade, we are in for a long year as the 4th place NL Central team....

So Lucroy's had one bad year - his rookie year. Not enough data to say anything about him one way or the other. Unfortunately 2012 is starting too look like a big outlier. Lucroy may just be a .700 OPS catcher which isn't bad, but he's not anything elite and he's paid like a 700 ops catcher.

Unfortunately for Braun, if he is innocent, there is virtually no way for him to prove it. So your expectation is that Braun has to prove his innocence? I don't know what I would have to be smoking to turn around Western culture that an accused has to prove their innocence. Missing in the smoke screens is that Braun doesn't have to prove anything, he hasn't been shown to be guilty of anything and I am happy to wait it out for actual data and facts that *prove* his guilt. What I believe is irrelevant, what I know is all that matters. Sure, any player could be taking banned substances, but personally won't assume just because many do that ALL do....

This is why I didn't go into sports broadcasting. No reason to limit it to sports broadcasting. Maybe I'm jaded from living in LA, but there's nobody on TV that is there because of what they know. It's all connections and looks. And having grown up in Milwaukee, the LA double baggers are Ms Wisconsin winners..... And the Golf Channel still exists?

When telling this story to my brother when he gets home ... for folklore's sake ... is it accurate to say Segura stole 1st and 2nd ... and unsuccessfully stole 2nd and 3rd in the same inning and the Brewers didn't score a run? I believe gameday would say: With rickie Weeks batting, Ryan Braun thrown out at 2B on jean Segura's attempt to steal 3B, Segura to 1B on the throw.....

So Segura basically made 2 mistakes. 1) going back to the base with Braun there (he should have let them tag him once Braun reached 2b; and 2) he should have stayed on the base until he was sure who was out.

Rule 7.08(i) Comment: If a runner touches an unoccupied base and then thinks the ball was caught or is decoyed into returning to the base he last touched, he may be put out running back to that base, but if he reaches the previously occupied base safely he cannot be put out while in contact with that base. Segura never reached 3rd and I believe this applies to advancing a base then being fooled into thinking there was an out and having to go back to the last base. What happened with segura is no different than a rundown. Segura is out and Braun now occupies 2B.

That was just absolutely the dumbest thing I have ever seen at 2B. Why was Braun out if 1) segura gave up possession of the base by running and 2) they tagged segura first.