adambr2

The only thing that should be on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting, since firing a manager and GM who have had the game of baseball pass them by is apparently not an option, should be, "What prospect(s) can we get for Player X?"

You know, I was a little bit baffled when Attanasio vehemently defended Melvin a couple of weeks ago and assured everyone that he was proven and that his job was more than safe. It just didn't make any sense to me. I tried to look at it from Mark's perspective. The Brewers are an investment to him, but even beyond that, he's a big fan. Now you've got your handpicked GM, on the heels of a terrible Suppan contract, continuing to spend money on ineffective pitching. You're watching your prized 1st baseman slip ever closer to not being signed OR traded, and leaving for nearly nothing. You're a franchise that has to spend wisely, and your GM takes your $85M and puts together a 5th/6th place team. How would I feel? Well, I'd be pretty ticked, quite frankly. Granted, I'm sure that Attanasio is and has to be more level-headed than the average casual fan. The way I see it, Mark's words about Melvin mean one of four things: 1 - He's bluffing, and Melvin is on the hot seat. 2 - He really genuinely believes that this franchise is headed in the right direction. 3 - His friendship with Melvin is clouding his judgment. 4 - He has been pulling the strings on a lot of the Brewer moves. I really do think this is possible. The Suppan deal? Pretty strong evidence that Attanasio was strongly behind that one. I've heard he ordered the Gagne deal as well. Is it possible that Wolf, Davis, Hawkins....anything like that, Melvin may have been told to get something done? Is it possible that Melvin thought trading Prince may have been in the best interests of the franchise this last offseason, and Mark A. quickly put an axe into that idea? Attanasio is a very hands on owner....I guess in a way, can you really blame him? Look at all the ideas that we come up with on a daily basis. Now imagine being able to actually implement your own ideas. If this IS the case, I would only ask Mark to be the owner, and be a fan, and leave it at that. Mark Attanasio is a great owner. But he's not, and should not be, a GM.

My system -- each manager receives 2 challenges, that must be used prior to the first pitch of the 9th inning. In the 9th inning and every inning thereafter, the booth will review any questionable, reviewable play. The manager simply signals to the homeplate umpire that he wishes to challenge. The booth has 90 seconds to review the play. The 2 challenges are enough for each manager to be able to fairly challenge game-changing plays prior to the 9th inning, but limited enough where a manager won't use challenges pointlessly. Reviewable plays -- a play at any base including a force out or tag play. If a runner had been called out and was found safe on review, play is dead at that point if the mistaken out was the 3rd out -- all other runners return to the respective bases that they had been on. If mistaken out was the 1st or 2nd, play is still considered live at that point, any other runners who advanced, scored, or were tagged out during continuation of the play will be allowed. If a runner had been called safe and was shown to be out upon review, play is dead if that had been the 3rd out, any advancements will be nullified and the inning ends. Again, play continuation WILL count if it ends up only being the 1st or 2nd out upon review. All base reviews apply to all baserunning situations, whether balls in play, stolen base attempts, etc, whether the play was made while advancing, or retreating to a base. A runner leaving prematurely on a sac fly is reviewable. If the runner leaves early, the umpire will not make that call until after the play at the next base or home plate is made. If the runner is safe, but the umpire rules he left early upon appeal, that is reviewable for the sake of awarding that base to the runner. No play will be overturned without conclusive video evidence. All other plays (balls, strikes, balks, trapped balls, fair/foul on the field calls, are not reviewable). I would like a way to review these plays, but I'm not sure how feasible it is. A ball incorrectly ruled fair could easily be overturned by having the runners retreat and returning the batter back to the box. However, a ball incorrectly ruled foul will result in no play continuation. Therefore, there's really no way to overturn that unless you're just going to automatically rule a ground-rule double after review and have the runners advance accordingly. Rather than get into that, I think it would be better to keep such fair/foul calls as non-reviewable -- for now.

#1, Bush is not getting Soup money next season. The market for a guy like Bush is not even close to that right now. And some players require overpayment to come to Milwaukee, but not all. Not every player needs or wants L.A. or New York. Washburn wanted to come here or Minnesota. And sign Prince now? There's a GREAT example of a guy who is going to need to be severely overpaid if we are to keep him around. He may get overpaid no matter where he goes. Slugging first basemen are a dime a dozen. Combine that fact with his defensive deficiences, and I'm just not sure it's worth it.

Capuano, May 23rd: 6 2/3rds, 7 hits, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 K Another very efficient outing.

Doug Melvin hasn't traded high on anyone since Scott Podsednik. That's what frustrates me so much about him. I guess you could argue Lyle Overbay.

1st guy is Prince.

All those random splits aren't really the same as home games. You're supposed to be winning at home. Or at least winning a little more than 4 through your first 14. I'd be a little more willing to chalk it up to random luck if we weren't dropping all these games against poor teams.

Well, if we think that's bad, we're going to definitely have our hands full with Santana, Hamels, Halladay, Cueto, Lincecum, Cain, Zito, Oswalt, Haren, Wandy R, Jurrjens, Nolasco, Johnson, Strausburg, Penny, Wainwright, and Pelfrey. There's plenty of good to great starting pitching in the NL. If we're going to have to throw our hands up every time we face one, especially at home, and just say, "Nothing we could do, we just ran into good pitching," then we may as well go ahead and be resigned to the fact that we're not going anywhere.

At home is where you're supposed to be making up ground. Not getting murdered. 4-10 makes us the WORST team in baseball at home, percentage-wise. This is obviously bad for the team, and bad for continued attendance. How long are fans going to want to continue to come to the games with the team continuing to perform so badly in front of them? I don't know what it is, if they feel more pressure, or what it is, but they better figure it out. Even the worse teams in baseball play around .500 ball at home. And it's not like we can cite a tough schedule. Actually every team that they've played at home is under .500, except the Cardinals. 3 at home against the Braves, you're looking to take 2 out of 3. Not try to avoid a sweep in the last game.

Dan Kolb, Doug Davis (though he got bad return on this one), Richie Sexson, arguably Junior Spivey, Lyle Overbay. Melvin I think has actually done a very good job with the "buy low, sell high" philosophy. It's hard to fault him for holding on to Hardy and Prince, because they were playing for a potential playoff team. And I will not ever fault Melvin for the CC trade. What team wouldn't trade just about anything to get to the playoffs and have a chance at the World Series? It would be nice to have LaPorta on the roster right now, but seeing the Brewers go to the playoffs was infinitely nicer. Melvin deserves credit for this move, not criticism. Davis was coming off the worst full season of his career when we traded him. Not sure how you can call that a sell high situation. Kolb yeah, even though Capellan turned out to be a bust. Sexson was yes, his best deal and the kind of thing I wanted to see us do with Prince -- though he then gave up too early on De La Rosa. And as far as CC, depends on what you're looking for from your franchise. We took a step forward for 2008 but two steps back for 2009 and 2010 and we're obviously hurting because of it now. To most people that was worth getting to the playoffs even with a first round exit. To me, I'm not sure I can agree that it's worth that price without at least a World Series appearance. I guess for historical importance of the franchise it was great. But it felt like our eventual plan in '05 and '06 as our rebuilding process unfolded, was a World Series, not just finally reaching the playoffs.

- Essentially trading Nelson Cruz for Kevin Mench - Only one solid pitcher developed from the farm system (Gallardo) since Ben Sheets. - Failing to trade high on Hardy, Prince, and others (has Melvin EVER traded anyone who's stock was overinflated at the time, other than Scott Podsednik?) In addition, as much as people LOVE the CC trade, I think it set us up for failure big-time in 2009 and 2010. Why? We "went for it" when we traded for CC. I'm sure they'd love to say "going for it" meant playoffs, but they had a World Series in mind at the time, not just playoffs. Why wouldn't they? We were the second best team in the NL BEFORE the CC trade. At the time, the idea was that it was going to put us over the top, not just eek us in the playoffs to get knocked out in the 1st round. The Phillies ended up winning that year, but the Central was considered far and away the best and most competitive division, and the trade was meant to put us over the top in the central. Frankly, much of the team choked down the stretch in 2008 and we were lucky CC came through for us. But by not going after a guy in trade who might have had some staying power (ex: Grienke), we were due for a regression, and Melvin tried to put the best face he could on a 2009 rotation that included Jeff Suppan as the opening day starter, but we were completely set up for disaster after Sheets and CC departed and had no MLB ready pitching prospects to help.

It's not "one of the worst rotations in the history of baseball." Come ON. That's a major exaggeration. It's better than last years, which yes was one of the lesser ones in franchise history. Gallardo, Wolf, and Davis are yes probably all a bit below average as #1/#2/#3's, respectively. Bush is an average #4 when healthy. Let's not make a ton out of yesterday, as bad as it was. We still don't know what we're going to get for our #5. Narveson could be anywhere from a solid #4 to a weak #5. Parra could be anywhere from a solid #2 to solely a reliever. Add it all up and it's probably a bit below average right now overall, with the potential to be decently above average. In 2001, our best ERA in the rotation was 4.76, and our "ace" was Jamey Wright, with an 11-12 record, 4.90 ERA, and 1.53 WHIP. If you want to call THAT rotation one of the worst in baseball history, I'm with ya.

Why do I want Melvin fired? Well, let me start with the $25M+ almost 1/3rd of the dead weight on our team -- Suppan, Hall, Riske. Add in him refusing to even LISTEN to trade offers for Prince this offseason, a critical error for a small market team. If he doesn't get a fair offer, fine. But covering your ears, you're not giving your team the best chance to improve. Trading low on Hardy, trading low on Hall, trading low on Davis, not trading high on Hart....if Melvin were a stockbroker, he'd be awful. He won't let go of his valuable trading chips until they lose significant value. Sure, there are some exceptions -- Podsednik and Overbay. But those are few and far between. Frankly, I think some are really not looking at the big picture when they count the CC trade as a big W for Melvin and the 1 playoff win it got us. It was a rental that did get us into the playoffs, but weakened the farm system and left us in dire pitching trouble in '09 and beyond (by not going for a trade with someone who was going to be remaining in town). Sure, he had some good pickups, every team does. Kapler, Edmonds, McGehee, Turnbow, were all nice pickups, but let's not pretend that every team doesn't run into a handful of those over the years. Obviously Nelson Cruz was the one who got away. I don't expect him to get every one right, but that one sure does hurt, especially when the trade wasn't necessary, and a bit confusing that they attempted to trade Lee for proven MLB players rather than young talent that could be helping us now. I think Jack Z did most of Melvin's dirty work through the draft, and if the best we can say about Melvin is that he was able to sign some of these guys to long term deals like Braun and Gallardo (which he couldn't unless there was a mutual interest anyway), then that's not saying a lot. I used to be a big Melvin fan. But now that I look back at his overall body of work as a GM, I'm not particularly impressed. For us to be able to put together a $90M payroll and yet struggle to reach .500 tells me there's been a lot of money spent foolishly.

If the D-backs wanted to give us a minor league filler than will never make it and give us $2M in salary relief, I'd jump all over it. Hey, it'd be more worthwhile than just dumping him and eating $14.5M.

Sure he would. We buy out his entire $12.5M contract this season + the $2M buyout for next season, and he'll stay home.

Suppan had a negative WAR last year, and the year before, and the way he has been trending, there's absolutely no good reason to think he won't have a negative WAR in 2008. So if the average AAA call-up can outperform him, which, by the very definition of WAR, they can, that's really telling about how having Suppan on the roster just for the sake of putting his $12.5M to work might not only block someone else more productive but hurt the team in itself. We've got some starters in AAA that can potentially do just as well or better than Suppan. Capuano (if his latest problem isn't too much of a setback), Dillard, Lofgren. They're not great options but I'd rather rely on one of them in a pinch than rely on Suppan every 5 days. Heck, there are still free agents out there that could be had on a minor league deal that are better than Suppan. There's no reason to panic and worry about whether we will have enough pitching if we release Suppan -- it's like fretting that Mike Burns going down with an injury in AAA will be the difference between the Brewers making or missing the playoffs.

Suppan hasn't seen the minor leagues in 12 years. I think he'd rather sit at home on the couch, play with the kids, run his restaurant and wait for another big league opportunity than stay in Holiday Inns and ride buses. Bush is more likely to accept a minor league assignment because he has more money to lose. If the Brewers can trade Suppan and eat most of his salary, that would be neat. Hard to say Bush taking a minor league assignment means his FA is pushed off a full year. He's right at 5 years service time so a month in the minors would lose him a full year. In this market, arbitration is setting up to be a much better financial situation for guys like Bush than free agency. There's no way he's a $4.215M dollar pitcher in free agency. I don't think it would bother him that much to be arbitration eligible an extra year...he either makes an overinflated salary for one extra year, or becomes a FA anyway. (if no arby offer).

That would still leave a team on the hook for $4.5M of Suppan's contract this year. There is no way in this market that any team is interested in Suppan at that price, much less trading something to have him at that price.

What about getting Bush to accept a minor league assignment? They might consider that if they are really hell bent on giving Soup at least a few starts in April to see what happens before they DFA him. I don't think Bush would refuse and forfeit his $4.215M salary. He's not dumb, he knows that in this market, $4.215M for this season is considerably more than he'll be able to get if he declines a trip to Nashville and elects free agency. With guys like Washburn and Looper still looking for work, I don't anyone is going to offer Bush more than a $1M flyer or so as a FA. So in theory then, we could keep everybody. Bush to AAA, (for now), Suppan in, Narveson and Parra in the 5 spot/long relief, in some order. Frankly I'd prefer just releasing him. If our season hinges on whether or not Jeff Suppan makes this rotation, we're not making the playoffs anyway. Suppan is probably still good enough to be a league average #5 starter. But when we have Bush, Parra, and Narveson who can be decidedly better when at their best, I'd prefer not to mess around with desperately trying to salvage our $12.5M.

Narveson is making it awfully tough not to give him a roster spot...another solid outing today and yet to allow a run.... Bush is doing well.....Parra is too, and obviously he has that big potential factor.... I really think this is the nightmare scenario so far for Melvin and Mark A. They didn't want to come out and say it, but they came in with the mentality that Suppan was the frontrunner of the 4 for the last two spots and a job was his to lose. They were hoping for a decent ST out of him so they could justify keeping him around for his last year. Now the opposite is happening and they're torn between releasing a $12.5M player and keeping him around and still trying to justify it...my opinion..... At this point, if Suppan makes the rotation and Narveson gets waived, they may as well have said that there was absolutely nothing Narveson could do to get a spot and absolutely nothing Suppan could do to lose a spot, barring injury, rather than telling us they were all in contention.

I think there are definitely issues between Macha and Parra, but as was pointed out, Macha isn't the final authority on the 25 man roster. Melvin has made it pretty clear that he's not at all concerned about having 3 lefties in the rotation. He even said the team has conducted studies on it and that he's not concerned. I think Parra would have to have a complete disaster of a spring training not to make the rotation. And he should, really. Worst case scenario, he probably puts up Jeff Suppan numbers this year. Best case scenario, he's a #2. So we're really not risking much to keep him, and we already know what we're gonna get with Soup. We're still a franchise that needs to keep the big picture in mind, and Melvin will. He's still got 4 more years of club control, they'll wait him out. It's not like 2010 is a "now or never" season for us.

Villanueva has more than 3 years service time though, so doesn't he have to clear revocable waivers to be sent down? Not sure about Heether, but I do like him to make the club...he was pretty productive in AAA and is pretty versatile...

I originally was going to go with Kotteras too, but that would either require them to split time at AAA, or have one of them all the way down at AA, and I'm just not sure if that's going to happen.

I'll give it a go: Rotation: Gallardo, Wolf, Davis, Bush, Parra (5) Bullpen: Hoffman, Hawkins, Coffey, Stetter, Villanueva, Vargas, Lofgren (7) Lineup: Weeks, Escobar, Braun, Fielder, McGehee, Hart, Zaun, Gomez (8) Bench: Counsell, Gerut, Edmonds, Heether, Lucroy (5) DL: Riske, Suppan I think especially with no options left, you can pencil in Parra for a rotation spot. I know he sucked last year, but they won't give up on him and really can't afford to. So that leaves a spot for Suppan or Bush. I say Bush gets it just on the premise of being the better pitcher when healthy, and they find something to safely stash Suppan away on the DL to start the season. The other option is to cut Bush and most of his $4.2M dollar salary, but given depth concerns, I don't think they will. I think the top 5 are near locks in the bullpen, and Vargas is a pretty good bet. That leaves only 1 spot -- so it's just a guess but I say they go with a 2nd lefty and pick youth and upside with Lofgren over Showenweis. Obviously I wouldn't be surprised to see them go a number of other routes. Riske though, I think, starts on the DL, again, for depth and insurance. I don't see a spot for Narveson, so hopefully he clears waivers and can start in AAA. No surprises in the lineup, other than maybe no Gamel. He starts in AAA for development and insurance at 3rd. The bench has a combination of youth and experience. Familiar face with Counsell, and Edmonds makes the team too. Heether gets a chance to be this year's McGehee, and Gerut has little to no competition for the other OF spot. The backup catcher spot goes to Lucroy, with Salome starting in AAA ready to swap with Lucroy depending on how the first couple months go. Zaun gets about 75% of the starts.