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.

I long for a World Series. I hoped we'd be closer last year than 80-82. No one longs for .500. Ever. I think Hardy wasn't treated as well as he could have been. He also didn't play as well as he could have. A vicious cycle. Hall just stunk, unfortunately, and his contract also stunk. Hall was 'can't-play-him-can't-trade-him' bad. Another vicious cycle. With the new season inching closer, I'm slowly becoming hopeful the Brewers will be good this year... Yet another vicious cycle begins.

I was optimistic in 2005 and 2006 when it wasn't particularly easy to optimistic. I was also optimistic in 2007, 2008 AND 2009. I was an optimist right up until about July 2009. So I am no longer optimistic. It is true. I guess it sucks that I'm posting negativity. Sorry. Perhaps I need to rethink my feelings for the team, if only for the sake of my fellow fans... But I'm not optimistic anymore. You think this is easy? Ugh.

Seriously? We're happy Vargas is back? Ouch! Loooong season here we come.

THAT is what this article is really about - reaffirming our place as a sideshow. That one playoff appearance? Apparently a fluke. If I were a national writer, that's what I'd see too. Heck, that's what I see and I'm a fan! I believe Melvin waited too long to trade Hardy - precisely one year too long...

I think the team mishandled Hardy when he was rushed to the majors in 2005. Hardy flat out sucked in his first half a season, and we are all lucky it didn't ruin his confidence completely. Hardy did manage to turn it around the second half of his rookie year, got hot, and he showed flashes of his offense to come. Hardy's second season, 2006, could have gone either way, but he was injured on a play at home in May. He only played a month and a half and never got hot. 2007 and 2008, Hardy was one of the core players of the team. He had cold streaks, but he had incredible hot streaks. He was the only player that stayed consistent at the end of 2008 - when the team seemed like they were falling apart - and he was one of the the only players on the team to perform well during the short playoff series. Hardy was a very good player for the Brewers during that stretch. But the colossal mistake in the general mishandling of Hardy was holding pat last offseason - by NOT either signing him to a long-term deal or trading him. Hardy's trade value was never going to be higher than it was last offseason. Either choice - trading Escobar or Hardy - would have been better than holding pat. I do think Hardy's poor 2009 was related to the fact that the team wasn't committed to him. He had said he wanted to be a Brewer, but the trade rumors were swirling from the beginning of 2009, and people kept asking Hardy about it, and I think it messed him up. I think he played worried. And I don't think sending him to AAA helped his trade value. And now, we have Escobar and Gomez. Like it or lump it. I personally lump it.

That's precisely why this season was so painful and precisely why I ranted off the rails over this whole Hardy thing. Unless Melvin can find some pitching somewhere, something he's not always been great at, the window seems shut. But maybe Weeks will have a good year...

Yuck. Melvin Melvin Melvin. Mishandled Hardy. Got junk. Methinks Hardy will rebound nicely for Twins next year. Good luck to him. Here comes Escobar...

"Our evaluation of our pitching didn't go as planned," said Melvin, whose club finished 80-82 a year after making the playoffs for the first time in 26 seasons. "I take responsibility for that." I feel like an abused spouse being lured back to an abusive husband!!

I don't hate Melvin. I met him once and he was super nice. Also, he did help get the team from a well below .500 group of creampuffs to a battling for .500 group of semi-studs. But that is just as far as Melvin is capable of going. I lived in Texas for the Melvin years. I've seen this before. The window of opportunity is largely gone. I'm sorry for saying so. But I'm more sorry that the window is gone and that all we got was last year's brief little ray of sunshine. One playoff appearance every 30 years sucks more than anything I'm saying on this board.

The Brewers upper management is terrible! This whole Hardy situation illuminates that. Hardy has sucked this year! Melvin has sucked more!!