SomewhereInTime

First of all, to respond to the bolded portion of your post. No, it absolutely does NOT need to die. When we are "hunky dory" with anything less than winning it all, it's time for a franchise to get the hell out of town. And that's where far too many Brewer fans still are. We have been so awful for so long, now that we are slightly less awful, that's seen as some beacon of light. Finishing above .500 doesn't warm the cockles of my heart, because so many teams do it every year. Is that what we're aspiring to? And for the love of God, people, please stop with the "compared to the last 33 years" nonsense. The Brewers have been one of the biggest disappointments of all American professional sports franchises in the last fifty years. Whenever a comment is made "well, this 13 year run is better than what came before"....stop typing, and think about what you are saying. Because, in essence, here it is: "In the aquarium that is Major League Baseball, the Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers have been the bottom feeders for the vast majority of their existence. For the last thirteen years, a couple times, we were not bottom feeders. One time, we were really good....in thirteen years. One other time, we were fairly good (and we made the playoffs ONLY because a pitcher we acquired had one of the greatest half-seasons by a starting pitcher in recent memory). Without CC Sabathia, we don't sniff the playoffs. Not even close. I'm not discounting it. I'm just not putting a lot of weight into it. Showing up at the dance means nothing if you spend the entire evening standing at the punch bowl. Finishing above .500 is not something to be proud of. When that's viewed as a positive of "gee, look how far we've come!", things have been very, very bad. I don't give a damn that we've finished above .500. Know how many of the thirty teams in Major League Baseball are above .500 right now? Seventeen of them. Finishing at .500 is NOTHING in today's game. It's not a success story. It's not a gold star on the report card. All that means is that you were slightly better than some, still a long way behind the best teams in baseball. The bottom line is that Doug Melvin has had the keys to the car for well over a decade, with an owner that is spending, comparatively, more than any prior owner in team history, and we are once again the bottom feeders of Major League Baseball. And six seasons of winning more games than we lost (which is no achievement) doesn't help to ease that fact. I'm tired of rationalizing our failures. I'm tired of accepting one truly good season in thirteen as some sort of progress. Save from 1978 to 1983, the Brewers have been an abysmal failure of a franchise. We have won two post season series in 47 years. That is terrible. No, it's laughable. You know who laugh at us? Fans of the Miami Marlins. They've been around half as long, and they've been terrible for most of their existence. Yet, they've won two World Series titles, the first in their fifth year of existence. Meanwhile, we've been here nearly half a century, and we haven't made it to the Series in 33 years. We have only Philadelphia to thank for not being the WORST TEAM IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. Right now. The Brewers are 24-42. We have a .285 OBP as a team. In another discussion about Matt Dominguez, I posted the team OBPs put up by the Astros in 2012, 2013 and 2014. All of them, including a 2013 team that lost 111 games, were better than the Brewers this season. That's what we are! We are 30th of 30 teams in baseball--dead last--in OBP. We are 27th in runs scored. Pitching? We are 28th in team ERA, with only Boston and Colorado (the thin air) worse than us. We are 26th in team WHIP. And, we are dead last in home runs allowed, having surrendered 80 in 66 games. Logan Schafer.....should not be in the Major Leagues. Elian Herrera....should not be in the Major Leagues. Martin Maldonado should barely be in the Major Leagues. Hector Gomez, Hernan Perez...how are these people wearing Major League uniforms? This is where Doug Melvin has taken us. This is how he's built our franchise. On August 19th last year, we were 71-55 after beating the Blue Jays. We went 11-25 the rest of the way, and we're 24-42 this season. We've gone 35-67 since August 19th last year. 32 games below .500. Melvin is a cancer to this organization. From our minor league affiliates jumping ship with no warning (Melvin clueless to the coming punting of the Brewer organization), to ridiculous signings, to one terrible draft after another...he has completely handcuffed this franchise. All that young talent we had, and we got one truly great season from them, because Dougie wanted to go out like John Elway, on top of the world. But we should be overjoyed to have that memory, right? We finished above .500 five times in thirteen years. Woo hoo! Yeah, a lot of nice words. I wish we had that genius GM and staff and could compete for WS every season. But I understand the way major league baseball works, it's unlike other major professional sports leagues in the US, there is a massive disadvantage for small market teams in this game. There is zero room for error in the 30th largest market in the league. The small market teams that are in good shape right now are often there after decades of losing. I'm a realist, of course I want the Brewers to be a team that can win it all every year, but I understand that's not realistic. Fielding a good number of competitive teams and making the post season a couple times isn't the big goal but it's not nothing. How many other GM's enter the same situation Melvin did and do a lot better? Maybe a few, but plenty do worse. The common theme for teams in the same shoes as the Brewers is windows. These teams need to rebuild and that sets up a window to compete. Trying to compete every year as a small market team can lead to where we are now, picking in the middle and lower in the draft year after year hurts our farm system along with trading away prospects for now. But if you don't try to maximize your chances in certain years you end up with long strings for average at best seasons. This is the continual problem that small market teams run into. Hitting a long succession of successful years generally either takes a lot of money or a lot of losing leading up to it. We don't have a lot of money and the team is bad again so it's gonna be a few years of losing baseball and with Melvin getting up there in age, it's gonna be with a new regime. Hopefully soon we have another team that can have winning seasons and compete year after year. But after that window has closed it doesn't mean it's a massive failure if they don't win a bunch of WS. It's small market baseball, it is what it is, this isn't the NFL or NBA where good management is the only difference between winning every year and losing. As long as economic factors are in play, a realistic Brewers fan knows where they stand and knows the long odds stacked against us every year.

Give them a 5 year post-season ban and 500 million dollar fine, cripple the franchise

Well I'm glad I have some agreement. This is Major League baseball, not the NBA, not the NFL. It's an uncapped league where the big market, high payroll teams have a big advantage over the small market teams. And we're dead last in market size here in Milwaukee. Our payroll rankings during the Melvin years have been (starting this year and looking back) 19th, 16th, 18th, 10th, 17th, 18th, 17th, 15th, 19th, 24th, 27th, 30th, 28th Luckily we've got a good owner, and have had a high amount of fan support in recent years with good attendance, but even with that, our payroll has gone from bottom of the barrel to below average. We draft and develop Fielder, and then watch him leave for free agency because we can't afford him. We trade for Greinke but can't resign him when his contract is running up and have to trade him for prospects, we trade for Sabbathia but can't afford to resign him when his contract is up, etc. etc. can't afford top free agents so we have to settle for Randy Wolf, Jeff Suppan etc., If you follow this team you know the deck is always stacked against us. There are going to be plenty of lean years between post season appearances. When looking at the other small markets of MLB: Kansas City Royals: Won the 2014 pennant, but only after a 28 year post season drought with just 7 winning seasons in that time period Cleveland Indians: Success since 1995, 8 postseason appearances in 20 years with 2 pennants, 11 winning seasons, but only after a 41 year postseason drought. Cincinnati Reds: 2 division titles and 1 WC since 2010, but only after a 14 year postseason drought, they haven't won a postseason series since 1995 Pittsburgh Pirates: back to back WC the last two seasons, but only after 20 straight losing seasons, Their WC "series" win in 2013 was their first since 1979. They haven't won a division title since reallignment. Colorado Rockies: 7 winning seasons in 22 years 3 post season appearances and 2 postseason series wins. Baltimore Orioles: 2014 Division champs, 2012 AL WC, after 14 straight losing seasons Tampa Bay Rays: 4 postseason appearances since 2008, after 10 straight years of 90+ losses In conclusion, small market teams in this system are going to lose, Melvin has been far from a failure for the Brewers during his tenure as GM.

Maldonado has cost 4 bases in this inning alone.

At what point does that happen? Assume two shortstops are involved in 673 chances over the course of a season. Shortstop A posts a .753 OPS and makes only 15 errors. Shortstop B posts a .950 OPS, but makes 50 errors. Which would you put out there every day? I'd find the extra 200 points of OPS very hard to pass up, even if there were 35 additional errors over the course of the season. As the primary third baseman for the Brewers in 2007, Braun's OPS was 1.004. In 2008, Bill Hall's OPS was .689. That sacrifice of offense - 315 points of OPS - meant the Brewers had only 17 errors from their primary third baseman, as opposed to Braun's 26 in 2007. A net reduction of 9 errors. I feel a little underwhelmed by that exchange. I think it's much more of a given that the Brewers could have made a deeper post-season run by keeping Braun at third, trading Hall (maybe getting CC Sabathia from Cleveland at the start of the season for Hall and LaPorta), and signing Milton Bradley as a free agent (Bradley posted a .999 OPS in 2008). In 2008 the Brewers replaced the Jenkins (.790 OPS in LF) and Braun (1.004 OPS at 3B) combo with Braun in LF (.888 OPS) and Hall (.689). They could have had Bradley (.999) and Braun (.888). I think it's obvious which combo would have been better. Judging defense by number of errors committed with lead to incorrect conclusions.

When you put it like that, that kind of sucks. In baseball's smallest market in an uncapped league, while having to work through a rebuild process for the first few years. It's not bad.

I understand a lot of the anti-Melvin sentiment and I do think he needs to be out by the end of the season. However, I really disagree with the effort to trivialize the last 13 seasons and the positive things this team accomplished under Doug Melvin. The all or nothing attitude of you either win it all or you're nothing, 2nd=3rd=30th etc. needs to die. There are lesser accomplishments that make a season worthwhile even if the team doesn't win a World Series. From 2003-2014 (12 seasons) the Brewers have finished with a .500 or better record 6 times, they've finished with a winning record 5 times. They've made 2 post-season appearances, 1 division title, they've advanced as far as the NLCS with one post-season series win out of three. They have a 6-9 post-season record. In the previous 33 seasons the Brewers finished .500 or better 11 times, they finished with a winning record 10 times. They made 2 post-season appearances, 2 division titles, they advances as far as the World Series with one post-season series win out of three. They had a 8-9 post-season record. This last 12 year stretch under Melvin has been more successful than the past 33 seasons even with the massive rebuild Melvin had oversee to start his tenure in Milwaukee. I would argue that it's not even fair to count 2003-2004 given the state of the roster when he took over. Then to somehow decide to not count 2008 because they were only a Wild Card team is ridiculous. Wild Card teams go to the WS all the time. This isn't like being a #8 seed in the NBA playoffs. Anyone who makes the postseason in baseball has a chance, even now in the era of two WC teams per league. That was a good 90 win team, something we'd be happy with any season. This team is in bad shape right now at the major league level, there's no question, but they have good talent at the low levels of the minors and they have some talented assets at the major league level that they can either build around or trade to acquire major prospects.

Most football stats are going to be terrible though, I mean you can't tell me that regular QB rating is that meaningful either. The only thing that matters in football is how a guy grades out on tape, the stats are just for fan entertainment.

lol how can you even quantify something like this? Are they using Catcher ERA?

He gets a lot of praise for his defense, and he does have a good arm and throws out a good percentage of base runners, but I don't think he's as good as some give him credit for. He seems to struggle blocking pitches behind the plate and plays like that drop he had on that throw to home earlier are just lack of concentration, the same with that wild pitch earlier in the inning, trying to catch a breaking ball in the dirt on a short hop instead of blocking it. It seems the more playing time he's gotten, the more he's shown he's not that far above average defensively (and with his bat he needs to be far above average defensively to be anything more than replacement or sub replacement level)

True, but with that logic you can always just look to someone elses boss as being the real fault of the problem. If we blame Seid's boss (Melvin) for hiring him and not firing him, then logically you need to look to Melvin's boss (MA) to blame for hiring him and not firing him.

Hunter Morris I really thought he would develop into the first baseman of the future.

Well I'm all for the full rebuild, literally trading anything of value at the deadline and moving on to new management, but I'm just saying Melvin's had a good track record when it comes to trades during his tenure here and I blame a lot of the recent draft failures on Seid. I also think MA does a lot more meddling than he should and that can be seen in the long string of veteran FA Pitcher signings starting back with Suppan. It's not just Melvin that's lead to the looming massive rebuild, there's organizational rot from the owner on down. I hope he does the right thing and wants to rebuild instead of trying to convince everyone again heading into next year that this team can compete and is only a FA pitcher or two away.

That's a lot of misinformation. There are reasons to dislike Melvin but his ability to make trades is not one of them. The only real mistake trades I can think of he's made have been late season relief pitcher trades, like the Broxton deal, or Linebrink deal, or Weathers deal. As for the draft it's usually the scouting director calling the shots. I'd blame Bruce Seid before I blame Melvin for poor drafts in recent memory. Why did we continue drafting hitting? Because it's pretty much BPA for the whole draft, that's how you approach a baseball draft. The little what if game you're playing can be done with every team in every sport and every draft, if only we'd have known exactly who to pick. Give me your predictions for this year's draft and lets see if they all turn out to be super stars.

The Sabathia trade, Greinke trade, and Marcum trades were great. Those were talented teams in '08 and '11 and those trades helped make them post-season teams. It's worth the prospects to take a good shot. I wasn't a huge fan of the Lohse signing because of the first round draft pick, but he's been solid, hopefully he's tradeable at the deadline. I've got no problem with signings that don't cost the draft pick like the Ramirez and Garza signings, there may be better ways to spend the money, but it's not my money, and if you end up losing a bunch, they're tradeable assets.

It's kind of the first time he's really been calling completely meaningless games for us. Obviously there are exceptions but for the most part the team has been pretty good during his time here, he's seemed frustrated at times this year, like a fan would be.

Ryan Braun might finally be coming around. He actually turned on an inside fastball and drove it.

I think I remember one brewer comeback in a 9-2 game in the 9th inning, probably back in '99 or '00. I know it was the first game of a double header and I found out about it when I got back home from school.

I'm of the idea that this will be an extensive rebuild. For a small market team Mark A has made an attempt to extend the window created with the last rebuild, overall they've missed the ultimate goal, but that's major professional sports, not every team will win it all in their current window of going for it. They've still had a number of successful seasons with 5 winning seasons 2 post season appearences, one NLCS appearence and one division title. The memories were great and I'm glad they went for it when they had the pieces to compete for a WS. But when a small market team like Milwaukee misses on the number of recent drafts that they've missed on and isn't able to sign top free agents to fill holes every season, you get what we have right now. I think it's time for an extensive rebuild, starting with the GM and the entire staff. I don't think there is a "core" to this team or any current pieces that they will build around (on the current 25 man roster). That doesn't mean that I think literally all 25 should be traded this season but everyone's for sale more or less. Looking at the current roster: Lucroy can be moved at the deadline and can net a nice prospect package in return as he's in his prime and still cheap and under contract for the immediate future. Maldonado can take over as the starter for the short term. Lind is still healthy and is producing, he can be moved before one or both of those two aren't currently the case any more. Scooter doesn't have any real value right now, he's the type of cheap starter worth keeping around for a few years, maybe he develops, maybe not Segura is young and cheap, might be worth keeping around to see if his value increases over the rest of the season and next year. Ramirez may be done, but if he heats up as the season progresses like he's done in the past he could net a prospect or two to a contender at the deadline Davis (same thoughts as I have on Scooter) Gomez should be moved at the deadline and could net a nice return Braun is probably untradeable with his contract, all you can do is hold onto him for a while and hope he comes close to regaining his past form Parra's value is likely negligible, he can be kept as the starter in CF for the rest of the season after Gomez is traded. The rest of the positional players have little to no value and can be fill ins after some of the above mentioned have been traded. In the rotation Lohse can hopefully be moved at the deadline to a contender if he regains form Garza will probably be tough to trade without eating some dead money, probably best to hold onto him Peralta and Nelson are young and cheap and may gain some value over the next couple seasons, may be best to hold onto both for a little while to really see what we have but as always be listening to offers. Fiers kind of falls into the same category but he isn't young, may not be a ton of value there. In the pen K-Rod could be moved if his numbers are solid heading into the deadline, if not next year is an option too. Teams overpay for relief help at the deadline. Same could be true for Broxton. Not much else in the pen would probably be moved this season. Year 1 of the rebuild will look ugly but now is the time to start laying the foundation for the future core of the Brewers.