DougJones43

Any opinion changes over the past couple of weeks? The one thing that really seems to have come to light is that the organization seems to be lacking any kind of direction. They're not winning now, but also aren't really playing for the future. Gamel's not playing. Escobar played briefly, but then Hardy comes back immediately on Sept. 1 (after no improvement to his stroke at AAA) and starts playing most of the time. Corey Patterson is signed, called up, and is not only seeing time, he is starting --- and hitting leadoff. Macha seems to be a lame duck after less than a year. Are we going to have to change managers again? What the heck is the strategy/direction of this organization?

I'm sort of curious...if Patterson is given a chance to win the CF job next year with a good spring, would that be enough to push anybody from "keep Melvin" to "fire Melvin"? I think it could happen. And I think Kendall could be back next year. There's a legitimate possibility that Patterson and Kendall could be regulars in next year's lineup. *Shudder*

0-for-3 with 3 strikeouts (so far)!! The ideal leadoff hitter. I'm sure glad that 3 good weeks at triple-A fixed Patterson, and now we can consider him for the CF job next year.

I agree. I would just prefer to kick the tires for the remainder of the season on somebody who might actually have a chance at being a contributor next year -- which is Gerut. Jody Gerut is only one year removed from a very nice .296/.351/.494/.845 season with over 350 plate appearances. Patterson's never had a season that good. His career OBP is .291. That's beyond putrid. If Cam isn't back, we need to see a little more a Gerut and get him as many ABs as possible in preparation for next year. Corey Patterson simply cannot be figured as even a possibility for the future of the outfield. If he is being so much as considered, that would be enough for immediate dismissal of Melvin/Ash, in my opinion.

Well, now the 2 players I hoped to never see play in a Brewer uniform (the other being Julian Tavarez) will have both done exactly that. Thanks, Doug Melvin and Gord Ash. If Patterson takes even 1 at-bat away from Gerut the rest of the season, it will be a real shame.

I just can't get on board with this idea that a GM bears such little responsibility in the actual performance (vs projection) of his players. That's part of a GM's job, in my eyes, is to spot trends/characteristics/abililties/etc. that might not show up in projections -- and lead to a player performing different than a formula says they will. I mean, what's the point of having a GM and scouting department if you could just look at BP projections every year and build a 85 or 90-win roster accordingly. Look at what the Cardinals have got with Smoltz after they noticed a flaw and fixed it. The guy went from "finished" to a very competent pitcher, all because of something that would have never showed up by just looking at projections. As far as projections for the Brewers staff goes, even though the staff might be exactly the same group of guys entering next year, their projections figure to be far different. That, in and of itself, goes to show that projections don't necessarily match up with the actual talent. It would be pretty much the exact same level of talent of 2009, but with significantly worse projections for 2010. There must have been something there that could have foretold this, but Melvin and company didn't see it or chose to ignore it. I like the use of stats as a tool, but there is so much more that seems to get constantly thrown to the wayside on this board. Sorry if it sounds Joe Morgan-ish, but the results on the field are what will always matter, not projections.

After this year's horrendous performances get figured in, the 2010 projections for most of these pitchers will be markedly worse than what they were entering this year, no?

The 2004 Brewers were 5 games over .500 on July 6th of that year. Doesn't really mean much. That club certainly wasn't any good -- they finished 67-94. Success needs to happen for a full season to prove/mean anything. And as a side note, there were people who were concerned about the rotation even when the team was doing okay.

Why is he pitching then? He's risking making his injury worse, and the results aren't any better than his replacements. And for what? We're not in it. It's gotta be either one or the other: Bush is hurt and still pitching, in which case the management/staff are morons -- or, he's healthy and getting whacked around anyway, and is displaying the fact that he's really not as much of a stabilizing force to the rotation as people had hoped.

I'm not totally confident those guys would have sustained those (passable) ERA for the entire season, injury or not. Braden Looper's ERA entering June was 4.24, and since then it's shot up well over half-a-run and hasn't come back down -- and he has been healthy. Either way, even if Bush/Suppan had kept up those numbers and stayed in the rotation, the point is I still don't think the rotation would have been good enough for this team to contend for the playoffs.

Considering we have the advantage of being in the NL, it's pretty bad -- but I'm not going to argue semantics of what constitutes historic. You're acting like the fill-ins are totally destroying what would be an otherwise respectable number. Have you seen the numbers the rest of the staff (including guys they replaced) have put up? Still horrible. And the team/management has no "bad luck" to blame for letting Bush and Suppan start games and get hammered while they were both injured.

Eight scoreless innings by Penny. I'll be shocked if the Brewers get a start even close to that by anybody the rest of the season.

From the JS today: Really shows how awful the starting pitching has been. Historically bad. I think anyone who believes we would have been fine with a healthy Bush/Suppan are really fooling themselves. We're not even close. If next year's rotation even remotely resembles this year's, it's going to be another long season.

I guess I really don't see what's so comical about it. At some point, getting some consistent results matters to a lot of people. This year will most like end up being under .500. Next year looks somewhat bleak as well. The couple of years before 2008 were marred by epic collapses by his teams with a dunce of a manager. Out of curiosity, how much failure do you think Melvin should be allotted based off 1 playoff appearance? This year is a failure. If next year is another losing season, will you still find it laughable to question him? I guess it's fine if you do, it's a difference in expectations. Some people think that the excuses, lack of opportunity, etc. validate Melvin, and some people are satisfied with because this franchise was so bad. That's your right, but it doesn't necessarily mean that people who have different expectations are wrong or laughable. Many people feel Melvin has had a lot of resources at his disposal, and the ultimately the results need to be there for more than a one-year run. I mean wasn't that the goal all along? Think back to 2005 or so, when hopes were so high with all of the prospects making their way up. If somebody told you the buildup would lead to sneaking into the wildcard one season, losing in the first round, and then going back to under .500 baseball, would you have honestly been satisfied to hear that?? I wouldn't have. edit: This obnoxiousness -- and outright belittling of the perspective of other fans -- is getting pretty tiresome, TLB. I have a feeling that if condescension like this was coming from the other side of the debate, there would have been warnings thrown out.

This is exactly what we heard about the last wave of players though. "The team will be good and balanced any day now, wait til 2011" just isn't good enough anymore. After 7 years as GM, it's been long enough that it should be happening by now. At some point, the results need to actually come to fruition at the major league level -- and it needs to be better than a one-year run followed by a sub-.500 season.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/deadspin/2009/09/wright_01.jpg Ummmm....I thought it looked cool in the pictures before it was actually put on somebody's head. It's a monstrosity. No wonder it can stop a 100-mph when it's that size. It looks like the player would sway back and forth with it on while running before eventually succumbing to the top-heaviness and toppling over.

Awesome site. I was able to track down an old Brewer site me and a buddy of mine tried to make in 2001. Obviously, our computer skills left something to be desired, and we never really got very far with it before Homestead wanted to make us pay to keep the site going. It's good for a laugh though. homestead.com/milwaukeebrewers

Hardy to teturn Tuedsay Hardy felt like he was being punished This is all getting more ugly than I had hoped. I wish they would have left Hardy down until the AAA season was over. Timing it out so that Hardy ends up with exactly 20 days in the minors makes the move appear more underhanded. If he was truly there to work on his swing, why not let him keep hitting there for another week? It's not like he's been hitting very well, so just calling him back up right after 20 days makes this thing stink like it's not just about performance. Hardy seems pretty bitter. I don't see anyway he's back next year.

That stuff didn't exactly happen recently. There's been ample time to alter the course -- it just wasn't done. Two of those guys have never even sniffed the high minors, and the other had Tommy John surgery. Counting on any of them to become contributors in the rotation was likely to end in disaster.

If it's not for determining what a player should or will be paid (due to the overinflation, differerential from the real MLB market place, etc) then it really shouldn't be used at all as a reference point to actual salaries. Ennder's post, IMO, clearly tried to do exactly what you said not to do, which was use the WAR$ to justify Hardy's actual salary. If what you say above is true, then the stat should only be used to compare players to one another, which basically means the "monetary" attachtment to the stat is meaningless in regard to real-life payscales. Doesn't make it a bad or useless stat, just a misleading one that could probably do without the inaccuracies of the included dollar values.

So, are you basically under the impression that there was no avoiding the downfall that happened this season? Melvin's hands were so tied that he, nor any other GM, would have been able to do anything over the past handful of years to put this franchise in a better position to be a playoff contender? I will freely admit I don't have all the answers as to what exactly should or shouldn't have been done. It's impossible to backtrack years into the past, isolating individual moves, and say what should have been done, because each and every move has a exponential effect on everything that comes after. Maybe La Porta could have been shopped prior to '08 and netted something useful longterm, but we don't know and it never gets talked about because he's gone now for 3 months of CC Sabathia. Perhaps Corey Hart could have drawn some interest after his impressive debut in '06, and we could have filled the corner outfield void through free agency. We don't know because prior to La Porta, Melvin has been totally unwilling to part with any of his position player prospects. Maybe if Melvin hadn't been hellbent on getting a "major league" outfielder as part of the Carlos Lee deal, a deal could have been made that brought in a starting pitcher who could be helping right now instead of getting 1+ years of Kevin Mench and Cordero. Cordero was a fine player during that time, but that doesn't mean it was the right move for the longterm success of the franchise. There's an unknown amount of possibilities. Just because we don't know exactly what they were doesn't mean we can't speculate that the current state of the club could be better. I understand being a GM is incredibly difficult, and only a select few people can do it. Some are better than others, and making moves that end up producing results (I referenced in another thread Wren trading for Vazquez vs Melvin signing Looper) is ultimately what separates them. When you say it's "unrealistic" to wish the franchise was in a better state, I don't agree with that. With the talent and financial resources the organization has had recently, I refuse to believe that fielding a more competitive team this year was not possible. If in fact it was NOT possible, then I suppose I should probably stop watching the Brewers right now because they no matter what they do they're already tied to the destiny the baseball gods have put in motion for them. Please don't tell people what they should or shouldn't be happy about. If you're satisfied being 2 games under .500, that's your right. That doesn't mean however, by any stretch of the imagination, that anybody else needs to be told by you that they "should" share your sentiment.

There's been lots of examples cited here by people who pay closer attention than myself. I'm not going to go back and dissect every trade from the past 4 years to prove a point that there has to be pitching to have been had for position players as talented as ours. You're right that I'm making a generalized statement about the status of our current major league roster. Just because it's rather generalized though doesn't really make it untrue. There are teams (like the Braves) who have been able to get the job done as far as putting together a respectable staff without building it through the farm system. I mean, look at the deal for Vazquez. When you stack an acquisition like that up against the uninspired signings of Looper and such, that's pretty significant in explaining the current state of their starting rotation vs the state of the Brewers. Sorry if you don't like my lack of specifics, but in the end some teams have found a way and Melvin has not. Correct. I mean, it's nice that it was only a one year deal and all, but it's not like that money would have just evaporated if it wasn't spent in 2008. Deals like that likely have an effect budgeting for a smaller-market organization even when they're "off the books."

Melvin did have a certain stake in the drafting of our hitting as well as pitching. He deserves an equal amount of credit and blame respectively. Together with Jack Z, they did a good job of getting hitters and a poor job of drafting pitching. Ultimately though, it's on Melvin's doorstep to make sure the Major League roster is balanced. He hoarded position players from the low minors all the way up to the big league level, refusing to part with any of them. It's a long list including Weeks, Hardy, Fielder, Hart, Braun, Gamel, Escobar, and probably soon to be Lawrie as well. People gripe that we can't be sure of the opportunities he's had to obtain pitching, but you can't honestly believe there weren't potential moves out there during the past 3-4 years involving one or more of these guys. The only one he gave up (La Porta) netted us a 3-month rental player.

Great move here. The benefits of locking Hardy up for another year outweigh the potential negative reaction from Hardy or the union, IMO.

Cool avatar, pretendastronaut. I can tell you're picky about savings.