THEbrewguru

And don't get me wrong, Jack Z is light years ahead of what was before him. But there are 3 things wrong with his drafts. 1) He doesn't draft well after Round 1. 2) He can't draft pitching. 3) He likes DH's for the National League team. (Fielder, Weeks, Braun, Gamel, LaPorta, even Hart had to be moved to multiple positions).

I would win 40 games next year if that meant the Brewers won the World Series this year. Yes, St. Louis' season in '06 is acceptable. Your Sexson example is what's wrong with your argument. I'm not talking about the Richie Sexson of 2008. I'm talking about the Richie Sexson of 2003. You know, the 45 homer, 124 RBI, .272/.379/.548 player. The one who you think was nothing. So, with your Cordero acceptance, do you actually think we could trade Derrick Turnbow as part of a package for a stud hitter? OK. You mentioned 5 Jack Z picks taken after Round 1. In 8 years. And Mat Gamel is still in AA and looks to be a DH somewhere. Good job, Jack. Finally, as for Davis, if the Brewers can't afford $7 million/year for a #3 starter, they should get out of the baseball business.

If you strive for mediocrity, that's what you'll end up with.

I stand corrected. 85 wins has gotten you into the playoffs in a full season exactly 5 times in baseball history. That's something to hang your hat on.

Who cares if Sexson was going to leave in free agency? You still have a 45-homer, 120 RBI, top 5 first baseman in MLB and traded him for nothing. The Brewers received "many" starters, but how proud are you that Chad Moeller started? Or Junior Spivey? Ohka was a below average pitcher. Capuano was an all-star? Oh, boy. That and 50 cents can buy you a newspaper. Robin Yount made only 3 all-star teams in his career. How legitimate is being chosen for an all-star team? Fernando Vina, Jose Valentin and Ellie Rodriquez were also all-stars for the Brewers. Overbay was a little bit above average which pales in comparison to what he replaced or what followed him. For this above average player, he got a #5 starter, a #5 outfielder (on what planet is Gabe Gross a platoon player??) and, by your admission a AAAA pitcher, which really doesn't help the Brewers much. Melvin got lucky with Cordero because in Texas, he was what Derrick Turnbow is to Milwaukee. Hated. Reviled. Demoted from closer. But he found it again with the Brewers. No one expected that. I could care less about draft picks because they won't help the Brewers this year or next. And the way Jack Z. drafts after the first round, I don't expect much help anyway. Maybe he can draft a couple more DH's. But if you're so happy with draft picks, maybe he should have taken them a year earlier, so that they could help us by 2010. How was Doug Davis going to leave in free agency? It's not like he signed a $15 million/year contract with the D-Backs. $7 million is the going rate. He's probably a better pitcher than Suppan for $3 million less. You are proud of the contributions of Vargas and Estrada? Do you follow this team? (pared back long quote --1992)

85 wins every year but NEVER make the playoffs. OK, fine.

I'd rather have Ben Sheets at first than Lyle Overbay in the Brewers lineup at all. I hate Overbay; very mediocre player. But, to get to your original point, no DH for me. When the Brewers moved to the NL, I hated it because I didn't want to see the pitcher bat. After a year in the senior circuit, I never wanted to see anyone use a DH ever again. It denigrates the game of baseball. If a player is unable to field, he shouldn't play the game.

I'm of the opinon that it's time for Melvin to leave with Yost. I think the one reason he's keeping Yost around is because if he gets rid of him, then the spotlight suddenly moves to Melvin. What has he done since he's been here? One great trade (Lee for Podsednik) and not much else. For Richie Sexson, he got 6 schlubs. For Lyle Overbay, he got 3 mediocre players. For Carlos Lee, he got a closer (which he got lucky on) and 3 terrible players (well, 2 terrible and I don't know what happened to the pitcher). For Doug Davis and Dana Eveland, he got one year from a bad catcher and 2 bad pitchers. Then look at this off-season. You are not going to break up your nucleus (Fielder-Weeks-Hardy-Braun-Hart), so he had a couple decisions to make. He brought in Kendall because there aren't really any catchers available. Then, he had to make a decision. Keep Hall in center and get a left fielder or third baseman. Or move Hall back to third and get a centerfielder. He chose option B, which is, was and always has been a Bill Hall clone (high strikeouts, limited power, low average). Bad move. As for pitching, he panicked when he lost Cordero and offered Gagne an outrageous contract (when he was bidding against no one). He remade the bullpen and it could be either very good or very bad. But he was content with the starting rotation. He had quantity, but not quality. He had 2 good to great pitchers in Sheets and Gallardo and 1 average (Suppan). The other 5 were either bad veterans (Capuano, Vargas, Bush) or young kids with potential (Villanueva, Parra). However, if he wanted to make the next step, that is, go from 2 games out to a playoff team, you needed to get a quality pitcher in here and Melvin failed miserably. He has the same team he put together in Texas...free swinging offense with mediocre pitching.

Actually, Dean Taylor built the system, Melvin just maintained it and kept Jack Z.

What people don't understand about Doug Melvin and it's clearly showing in this thread is that as a GM for a small market team you have to take calculated risks. Turnbow was coming off of a 39 save season and in order to get cost certainty he gave Turnbow a whooping 3 milliions dollars. Big deal. What if they didn't sign him and he put in another 40 save season? Then he would have cost 10 million. What you fail to mention is that he could have done the same with Cordero last year but refused to do so. He had a great second half in '06 and talked to Melvin in spring training about an extension and Melvin told him to wait until after the season. I'm sure you'll come back with, "But Cordero was over half a season and Turnbow's 39 saves came in a full season." True, but Turnbow was picked up off waivers the previous year, so he wasn't highly thought of. At the contract signing point, he was still 3 years away from free agency. But Melvin has a habit of signing flukes to multi-year contracts. Brady Clark and Wes Helms come to mind also.