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You're right, it may not be awesome. It is better than 6 runs in 7 games though. I mean things could be worse right? Oh nevermind, what am I thinking!

Me too. I've got my fingers crossed in hopes that we actually get to see them play though.

Because at some point, the buck has to stop at the GM and you have to stop firing managers. Melvin was given a top of the line farm system when he came to Milwaukee and Attanasio has steadily increased his payroll. The results, however, just haven't been there. Now, after two years of failing to realize we didn't have any pitching, he went all in and so far, it isn't going very well.

I'm thinking this is Melvin's last year as well. He probably should have went with Macha though.

The good news is that if I recall correctly, the last time the Brewers were no-hit, they went on a tear.

We have gone through how many managers since he has been here?My thoughts exactly....

If Gomez doesn't make that catch, we could have ended up down by 14.

I'm not trying to overreact here, but if this season goes like last two have, will people start to turn their attention to Doug Melvin?

This is bad ..now Wolf is starting to lose his control as he just hit another batter.

I think that's a really good point. The Brewers have had a highly touted farm system for what seems like the past 10 years. Not to get off topic, but what has that amounted to? In my opinion, not much. Lets be honest, when we had guys like Hall, Hardy, Hendrickson, Krynzel, Hart, Fielder, Braun, Eveland, Parra, etc. all working their way to the bigs, we expected the end result to be more than barely making it into the playoffs with the wild card and winning just one game before being booted. Was I glad they made it to the playoffs? Of course, but when you step back and look at the big picture, I think we all expected more. While the minor league system may be very weak, the Brewers now have what I believe will be a great major league team and that has been the goal all along. Greinke, Gallardo, Marcum, and Wolf? Now that is something to be excited about, especially when you consider their lineup. Also, like Patrick said, if the Brewers farm system was really ranked 30th in the league ..than the Greinke deal must have been a steal.

I think we can all agree that the offseason has been great so far. My only concern, however, is that if the Brewers need to add a piece at the 2011 trade deadline, will they have the ammunition to do so? The way I see it, the Brewers are now down to 2 major pieces that could be used in a potential trade with Mark Rogers and Mat Gamel. Does this concern any of you? For this very reason, I would love to see Mark Rogers used as the #5 starter. Not only does this help to break him into the bigs while limiting his innings, but it also gives the Brewers an opportunity to showcase him and increase his value should they need to deal him for a missing piece. Past the aforementioned guys, the next likely options would be the likes of Peralta, Heckathorn, Scarpetta, etc. Thinking back, it took Will Inman, who at the time looked to be much more promising than these guys, to acquire Scott Linebrink. Since I don't think any of our everyday position players are going to be expendable, I'm thinking that we are pretty much going to be without flexibility at the trade deadline. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining at all. Doug did the right thing by pulling the trigger on the Greinke trade now as he will contribute for the entire season. I'm just curious to hear the input from others on how much flexibiltiy they think we will have and what kind of realistic package could we put together if a SS or CF were to become available.

Yes, after a few months it was clear that Parra was struggling and didn't turn out to be what the team had hoped. That is obvious. Heading into the 2009 season however, the Brewers were counting on Gallardo and Parra to anchor the rotation and that was a huge mistake. Then, Melvin thought that he could fix the problem by throwing Randy Wolf and Doug Davis at last year's rotation. Another error in judgement. I commend Melvin for his work this offseason but with the way he has built his pitching staffs in his tenure as a Brewer, he has certainly been deserving of some criticism.

We all know that Suppan was not the #1 or #2 starter heading into the 2009 season. He was coming off of a 4.96 ERA and a 1.54 WHIP in 2008. The ONLY reason he got the opening day start was because for some reason, Macha wanted to go with a veteran on opening day opposed to putting the younger guys in a higher pressure situation. If you recall, most fans were upset by the strange decision. Maybe some other people can chime in here but I believe that the 2009 rotation was built as such: 1. Gallardo 2. Parra 3. Suppan 4. Looper 5. Bush There was also some quiet speculation that Macha did not want to waste Gallardo's first start against Lincecum. Gallardo and Parra were the guys that the team was hanging its hat on to carry the load that year and the team was counting on Manny to build upon his 2008 season and provide #2 production. Here is an article from USA Today at the time: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/nl/2009-04-03-2299794987_x.htm Melvin echoed the above in interviews leading up to the start of the season. Doesn't really matter though, Melvin thought the rotation would allow the team to compete when even casual fans knew that it would be a serious weakness. If he really was counting on Suppan for #1 or #2 production, that is even worse. Again, its good to see we have come a long way since the 2009 season.

The Greinke trade means we are going for it ...so lets GO for it. Not sure if its just me, but it seems as if the Brewers historically have a lot of low OBP guys in their lineup. If they are going to maximize the talent of Weeks, Braun, Hart and Fielder, this needs to change. So my vote is to make replacing Betancourt a high priority.

Agreed. I have been critical of Melvin but it appears as if he is finally realizing that this team needs some top of the line pitching and is willing to part with some prospects to get it. If I could have added any player from the Major Leagues to the Brewers roster, Greinke would have been very high on the list in fact there are not many pitchers that I would have taken over him. I really don't think parting with Escobar is a loss at all. He was just another low OBP guy that the Brewers always seem to have too many of. Odorizzi could be good but the same thing was said about Will Inman. Losing Cain hurts but stud pitching does not come cheap. We've got some boppers in the lineup. If Melvin can go out and find some good fielding guys with plate discipline at SS and CF, I will be VERY excited about this upcoming season.

He said it in interviews on WSSP leading up to the 2009 season. Usually to the effect of "We are losing a lot with the depature of Sabathia and Sheets but we really like Gallardo and Parra to step up and replace them at the top of our rotation" ..that sort of thing. Who knows though, I mean what else could a GM say in that situation? He can't really go out and say "our rotation won't cut it and we are in big trouble". I believe that Parra started the 3rd game of the 2009 season only because Suppan started the first with Macha claiming he didn't want to put Gallardo under the pressure of starting on opening day in San Francisco ...so he went with the veteran. Here's an article where Melvin speaks about Gallardo and Parra fitting into the top 3 of the rotation (with Suppan). My, how far we have come.. http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/42164537.html

One thing that I really like is that our top 2 guys have youth on their side. Gallardo and Greinke will open the season at 25 and 27, respectively. Wainwright and Carpenter will be 29 and 36. Since Gallardo and Greinke are experienced starters, you have to consider that to be a positive thing. I'd definitely take Marcum and Wolf over Westrook and Lohse. It will be interesting to see how Martinez looks in his second season. Volquez, Cueto, Leake and Arroyo could be very good though.

We have starting pitching now but he is still to blame for the Brewers having the worst or next to worst starting rotation in the NL for the past two years. Going into the 2009 season, he was comfortable with Manny Parra as his #2 pitcher. I thought that was insane. At any rate, the Brewers went all in in 2008 and I really can't fault them for that. It pains me to think of what could have been that year. If Sheets didn't take a nose dive immediately following the trade for Sabathia, that team would have had just as good a chance to win it all as anyone else that year. A healthy Sheets was an ace that year and it would have kept CC from having to pitch on 3 days rest down the stretch ..which I believe ultimately led to his breakdown in the playoffs. That team had quite an offense and a playoff rotation of Sabathia, Sheets and Gallardo would have been very difficult to beat. Instead, the worst case scenario played out with the team getting bounced from the playoffs and getting no picks from Sheets due to his injury and CC being the second highest rated player to sign with the Yankees. I will say this though, Melvin needs to find a way to start devloping some home grown pitching.

Any thoughts on what a Jeffress/Gamel package could net in terms of a good young CF or SS? As a side question/note, when you have an outstanding PTBNL in a trade, I have to imagine it makes additional trades a bit trickier. Usually the receiving team gets to pick from a group of players. Due to this PTBNL, the Brewers could have 5 guys that are off limits in terms of constructing a trade...

I was thinking the exact same thing...... Macha was awkward and boring with the media but that didn't really bother me. I was indifferent to him and felt like he didn't bring a whole lot to the table but also wasn't the reason they were losing. Casual Brewer fans are going to think Roenicke turned this team around when in reality, Macha had nothing when it came to pitching.

I really wanted Garza, but only because I didn't think a deal for Greinke would be possible. Good job, Doug! The Brewers are giving up a lot in this deal but it doesn't really bother me. The Brewers have had pitching prospect after pitching prospect fail to pan out over the past decade. At some point, you have to fix the problem on your major league roster (pitching) and by waiting on prospects, the Brewers would have been about 4 years away from "maybe" having a solid rotation. Now, they "have" one of the best rotations in the NL with Rogers waiting in the wings. With their current rotation, I'd like to see Rogers get the 5th spot as it would be a great way to get his feet wet while limiting his innings. I also believe that the 5th spot in the rotation should be used for just this, bringing younsters to the Majors. Gallardo, Greinke, Marcum, Wolf, Rogers ....now that is something to be excited about!

Just out of curiosity, what do you consider to be a good ERA for a starting pitcher?

I think that a good example of players being able to turn it "on" and "off" is Corey Hart. Look how bad his numbers were in 2008 and 2009. Last year, he started playing very well. When he was asked what the difference was, he came right out and said that he wasn't working as hard as he should have been the past couple years. I don't mean to turn this into a Corey Hart discussion but just wanted to bring attention to an example where it appears as if players can "relax". On average, the correlation probably isn't too strong but there are probably individuals who raise what could be considered obvious flags. When guys are suddenly able to drastically improve their performance and their contract year starts to resemble and outlier, I believe it is cause for concern. Carl Pavano, Adrian Beltre, Carlos Beltran and Vernon Wells are a few guys that have had pretty drastic differences between their contract years and their first year under their new contracts.

That is not what the point is about as I have acknowledged the difference between the leagues many times. Obviously you pay more for the guy with the ERA coming from the AL. This is about paying him based on his AL statistics and using his switch to the NL as a risk mitigating factor should his pitching abilities regress. If you decide to pay him the premium based on his performance in the AL and his abilities regress, you are still not getting what you paid for even though the benefit of pitching the NL may mask or hide the regression in his statistics. That's all I'm getting at. Let me walk through this logic on final time: On a scale of 1-10, lets just say Pavano is a 7. As a pitcher rated as a 7, his ERA equates to 4.50 in the AL. The Brewers sign him and pay him the going rate for pitchers rated as a 7. In his first year with the Brewers, his talent regresses and he now rates out as a 6. However, since his new rating of 6 equates to a 4.50 ERA in the NL, his statistics will remain the same. The Brewers paid him as 7, but he is now a 6. Even though his numbers look the same, did the Brewers get what they paid for?

That "logic" really makes no sense at all. The point of the original post was to give us an idea of what type of numbers we could expect from pavano - simple as that!!! I'm not saying pavano is going to win more games in the NL, I'm not saying he is going to give his team any better chance to win games than what he did for the twins last year - everyone else seems to understand what I am saying, but you seem intent on arguing it - it's simply an idea of what we can expect from him numbers wise next season.Adding to that: Since those numbers are a drastic improvement over what was here previously as a #3/#4 pitcher, it does improve the teams bottom line and chance to win. Yes, injury history, age and everything else should factor into a contract - those things should factor into the length, but I digress - performance is the ultimate deciding factor in determining if he is worth the risk. Pavano has performed well over the past 2 seasons and is worth the risk of a short term contract imo. Not gonna bother with the rest, agree to disagree. On another note, Melvin clearly has learned something since he has drawn the line in the sand at 2 years. You are not getting the point at all and I don't know if I can explain this any other way. We are talking about Pavano's value and Pavano's value alone. All things held constant, say his AL ERA is 4.00 and his corresponding ERA in the NL would be 3.50. This "natural improvement" in his ERA of 0.50 from changing leagues does not benefit the Brewers and they should not pay for it. This is a natural occurance and everyone that pitches in the NL is of benefit for it so it has no impact on Pavano's worth. This is a very different concept from his NL ERA of 3.50 replacing the 2009's #4 pitcher's ERA of 5.25 (or whatever it was). Of course the Brewers would benefit from that. In my opinion, your orignal post implied that even if his ability regresses a bit, playing in the NL would improve his numbers and this logic was used as a risk mitigating factor to the contract that you were discussing. What else does this mean? If you pay him based on where he's at now and he regresses, you get the short end of the stick regardless as to whether or not the move to the NL hides the regression in his stats. We're all Brewer fans and want to see our team win. The horse is dead so I will not kick it any more. I will agree that Melvin must have learned something and am very glad to see him at least drawing a line at 2 years. This is encouraging.