brewizard

From this article: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AkDJ7LUi.V6UZb.B_RDbiSgRvLYF?slug=ap-brewers-macha Yet another classy Doug Melvin move. Doug, you are a truly awful GM. I can't believe how bad you are at dealing with your people. You have made it an organization wide problem. I never liked Macha much, but whacking him via leaked reports on the radio? Classy! Ugh! The way this organization has been run over the last couple years has made it very difficult to be a fan!

The real problem is that there IS nothing left to do. The Brewers are a shell of the team they were two years ago. Melvin let the window open and shut without ever quite balancing the pitching to the hitting. There WAS one brief moment in there, but I'm personally thinking a whole new management team and another decade MIGHT bring us back to the one-and-done playoff team we were two years ago. But that is a BIG might. I don't see any positives for the Brewers short or long term. Here I am, Negative Nelly, totally vindicated for my predictions of gloom and doom. I am mad too. I didn't want to see it come to this.

There does not appear to be a lot of gloom and doom for Twins fans, however. http://www.twincities.com...96049?source=most_viewed

For me, that was last season. This season is not simply disappointing. It's more like hanging out at a graveyard, at night, in the winter. It makes you realize just how cold and scary the world is...

Yeah. That's about the sum of the parts right there. Melvin is a mediocre GM when it comes to pitching. The Brewers pitching staff has been soft for years! That is so devastating precisely because our offense has been pretty good in that time. This really reminds me of Melvin's Texas situation, except Melvin has, incredibly, been LESS successful here than there. I was mad at Melvin going into last season because he held pat with the worst group of starters in MLB. Then, this year, I was still mad, but I had become more depressed than mad. Now, I'm no longer able top muster anger anymore. I'm just plain depressed when I think of the Brewers. Worse, if I express too much doom and gloom, those wearing Brewers blinders here will scold me for not being upbeat about the potential stud pitching we will get when we trade Fielder! Ugh... If the Brewers don't turn this around very soon, it will be time to nuke the roster and the front office. If that happens, of course, I think I'll need to reevaluate the amount of time and money I spend on the Brewers. The Cubs truly are cursed. The Brewers just stink.

I hate that I feel vindicated for my preseason cynicism.

Not too early to be demoralized. The Brewers are digging themselves a big hole. A white-hot ten game winning streak at this point will get us back to .500. Ugh. Fire Macha? Maybe they can get the Royals to fire Yost again. I dunno what Attanasio can do now except fire Melvin and clean house. But then what? Anyone really think Prince will sign an extension here? Doesn't anyone remember a guy named CC? The magic window is almost completely closed.

Ned Yost gets another job before we get back to .500 and now this. Anyone have any positive omens? I mean, other than beating up on the Pirates...

I'm soooo frustrated and disappointed already. I had the worst feeling about this team... After expressing a great deal of displeasure last season, and getting reamed for it by many here, I've tried to keep my mouth shut around here. However, I can't help myself. This is exactly what I saw coming... Sharpie has lost his edge. Wolfie don't bite. And Soup is cold. Ugh.

Soup was not the first MLB player to be injured by a bad pillow. Soup's injury, however, is clearly more serious than most MLB pillow-based injuries. Hope you feel better, Soup... http://www.theinsomniablo.../03/carlos_delgados.html

Agreed. And being sent down was similar bad management. (Again, Hardy had a four game hitting streak going - only his second four game streak of the season when he was sent down "to improve his hitting" and left down just long enough to alter his free-agency but not long enough to actually improve his hitting.) If you read what I wrote, I clearly stated that I believe Hardy was the best SS we'd had in a generation. I question the lingering bitterness toward him here. I also recognize that Hardy's last season was horrible - especially when compared to 2007-2008 when he was awesome. But Gomez has NEVER been awesome. He's raw. That means, we're hoping the management will be able to turn him around. Do you see the potential problem? I do. The same bad management that hampered Hardy is now going to try to 'fix' Gomez.

HARDY was given up on!! Now Hardy IS a solid SS? You can't have it both ways. Why the bitterness? Maybe because Hardy, a SS with some warts, was traded for Gomez, a centerfielder with many more warts. Had anyone in the Twins or Mets organizations ultimately believed that Gomez would be able to control his rawness, IMO, there was no reason to trade him. He would have been kept by either team. But alas. No. In fact, the Brewers and the Twins both exchanged damaged goods. The question is: which dented player will be more valuable going forward? My guess? Hardy. Why? Because I believe some of Hardy's issues were actually caused by bad management, whereas most of Gomez's issues are caused by Gomez.

No, but being traded for Hardy IS. Hardy was an awesome player for us 2007-2008. He had moments of white-hot amazing man-crush love as a Brewer. Those moments became few and far between last season, so we gave Hardy the heave-ho. Why is everyone so bitter? Now we have a cheap, decent SS. So what if he has illegitimate children and might be a creep? He can turn a double play, right? If anything, the way Hardy was handled made me lose tremendous respect for Melvin and co. And, the lingering fan bitterness seems completely misplaced. Hardy never cost the Brewers more than a few million in salary in any season. And last season's collapse certainly wasn't Hardy's fault. I recognize that he didn't help much, but most people - including me - blame the pitching for the general suckitude. The only reason fans should be bitter is that the Brewers likely missed their window of opportunity to win a WS. The other cause for bitterness is that Melvin traded Hardy for Gomez - who likely won't match Hardy's 2007-2008 value ever.

People seem to be suffering from severe Hardy burn. He was the best shortstop we'd had in a generation. Hopefully, Escobar will outperform him now. Hopefully, Gomez isn't a dead end, though he's been given up on by two teams now.

Hmm... It seems Melvin is stockpiling average lefties. IF the offense clicks, and the defense is above average, AND the pitching holds, this ship might not sink so quickly as last season. Still, there is a lot of ifs to this journey.