MNBrew

Yes but Liriano went through a rough patch with injuries. Now maybe Garza is hurt and not telling anyone but what we know about the two pitchers right now are completely different situations which is why it's ridiculous to compare them. Liriano's injuries weren't the cause of his ineffectiveness. I live in MN, watched an awful lot of his crappy starts, and the fact is that he pretty much stunk for a couple years and couldn't get his act together. He also didn't pitch great for the ChiSox -- in fact, he was arguably worse. Yes, there was a bit of time missed due to injury, but that wasn't why he was a good Braden-Looper-in-MIL comp for two years. I also see the comparison to Garza as a pretty valid one, with the obvious difference being their respective contract situations. Hopefully Garza turns it around similarly to how Liriano has. Heck, even half the degree of turnaround would be hugely productive compared to the way this year has gone.

If I called 1,000 random baseball fans on the phone, and asked them the following question: "Are the Milwaukee Brewers a respectable franchise now?" How many of those 1,000 people do you think would say "yes"? I don't think the Brewers are respected. Not at all. I read other baseball boards. I think the people that actually study the game, as I do, and look at the big picture, do not feel that Milwaukee is a respectable team in the slightest. Thirteen years Melvin has been here. We have won our division...once. And the NL Central isn't exactly the AL East. The Cardinals have been very good, but for the majority of those 13 years, the other teams have been bad. We've had the Cubs and Pirates (both terrible until the last two years or so for Pittsburgh, and Chicago this season). Then, we've had the Astros (LOL) and the Reds (at times, pretty good). If I did a statistical breakdown of the quality of competition within our own division, what do you think I'd find? We play divisional foes more than the other teams. Playing the Astros, Cubs and Pirates every year should at least get this team to .500 if we have anything on the ball. Why? Let's look. Our one "great" season, 2011. We won 96 games. In our division, we had: St. Louis 90-72 (won World Series) Cincy 79-83 Chicago 71-91 Pittsburgh 72-90 Houston 56-106 Look how awful the rest of our division was that year. Know how many 95 loss teams there were in our division between 2006 and 2013, when we finished above .500 4 times in 6 years? Ten, including five 100 loss teams. With the addition of a second wild card, it's easier than ever to make the playoffs. Yet we're still not doing it. The last three years, there have been two wild card teams in the NL. A full third of the teams in each league make the playoffs. Yet we still have only two playoff appearances in 13 seasons under Melvin. And again, there's where we are now. The Brewers a respected franchise? We like to think so, but I'd bet that if we asked people, we'd find a very different answer. 47 years. Zero World Series titles. Zero. And I no longer buy this cop out that it's so much harder for small market teams. Let's look at some teams with metro less than 3 mil, like Milwaukee. St. Louis 43-21 Pittsburgh 37-27 Kansas City 36-25 Tampa Bay 36-30 Minnesota 34-30 San Diego 32-35 Cleveland 30-33 Cincinnati 29-35 Colorado 28-36 Milwaukee 24-42 I see several small market teams that will make the playoffs, and have at least a decent chance of winning it all. Of the ten markets below 3 million people, half are well above .500. Two others are within 3 games of .500, and then you have the three bottom feeders, of which we are the worst. And if you look at those top five teams, what do they share in common? Some of the best minor league systems in the game. Holy cripes, 'Stache, exhale. It's hard not to get the impression that you hate Melvin and feel the Brewers' organizational history and cumulative approach/results combination is nothing short of shameful. Two main points in response: 1) Your selective quote of Invader3K ignores his next sentence stating his overall agreement with you. His first sentence is dead-on accurate. However, do you really think he was saying the Brewers' franchise is viewed by anyone as respectable right now? Your emotionally charged rant sure suggests that. See the forest for the trees here, please: When Melvin came on board, the Brewers' organization was about at one of its lowest points ever. Melvin brought the right combination of patience and savvy experience, and he applied them well as he oversaw the rise and along the way made many right moves to get it going further yet in the right direction, then made selective moves to trade strong young assets for guys to put the team over the top when there was a realistic chance of making the posteason -- the same thing a large number of GMs do in that position. Then again, through most of last year, the Brewers' success certainly had them viewed as respectable and relevant -- a status justly earned yet again by a team whose record was a very strong 71-55 . . . . of course, until the bottom fell out (and it's still nowhere to be found). And I'm guessing we pretty much all know there's little if anything terribly respectable or relevant about the franchise just under a year later. Most builds are slow, but a collapse can happen quickly and cause everyone's views to change very quickly. 2) The list late in your post is a Johnny-Come-Lately list. You cite how the top 5 teams have some of the best minor-league systems in the game. And on one level, you've got great examples and make a compelling argument. Of course that's exactly where we'd want the Brewers to be, too. However, there are details that undermine at least the emphatic aspect of your point . . . . A year ago, Minnesota & San Diego have worse MLB records and Milwaukee's up near the very top. Of those 5, St. Louis & Tampa Bay have proven to be chronically good at drafting and developing. The other three? They built up those top farm systems through years and years of chronic, heinous losing. Where those other three are now is where the Brewers were about 10 years ago (well, KC is kinda where Yost's Brewers were in '08 before the near-collapse of that September). My point? Given where they've come from, those teams HAD BETTER BE in their present situations of 1) HAVING LOTS OF GREAT YOUNG TALENT and 2) HAVING HAD THAT TALENT LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE IT START TRANSLATING INTO WINNING AT THE MAJOR LEAGUE LEVEL. . . . However, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that both KC & Pittsburgh went through decade-or-longer stretches of lousy MLB teams. Their winning trend at the MLB level is quite recent. Before this year Twins lost over 90 games the past 4 season, but before that had made the playoffs 6 out of the previous 9 seasons.

Now that Wang has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Brevard County, I hope we can now be past all the frenzied angst about possibly losing him.

You say that like it's not something really good to do in baseball. That's all he can do. Walk? Nope. Field? Not that great. Hit for average? Not really. So, great, you've got a guy who either gets out out or hits homers. Enjoy. Russell Branyan, anyone? I ask because he fits that exact same description and he got ridiculous love on this site LONG past when he deserved it. What's the difference? People clearly want Ramirez gone. Someone besides a backup middle IF needs to play there. What other options are there? Braun & Rogers aren't among them, that's for sure, and thankfully that's how it ought to be.

^ This. 100% this. There were so much better options to get rid of than Wang. Wang might be a success or he might be a failure. But yet there's a bunch of confirmed failures on the 40 man that they decided to keep. Just stupid. I get that you & trwi7 don't like a lot of guys on the current roster & wish they were gone, but proven successful big leaguers who are having a terribly lousy season well below career norms does NOT make them confirmed failures. I do find it funny there's so much tacit agreement that Clark should be DFA'd when he was everyone's darling last year and made a good case for the opening day roster out of ST. Shafer & Centeno could possibly be expendable, but I'd put Clark a good ways down that list. There's also folly in trwi7's list or at least some questionable attention because the Brewers DID try to DFA Kintzler but then he claimed he was injured, so he had to be put on the DL instead. I want lots of good young arms in the system, too, and Wang has a good arm, which of course is why they made the roster sacrifices to keep him last year. But when you're 23 in A ball & still pitch like a position player, that's a sign that you're a clear candidate to lose your 40-man spot and status as a prospect of any significant merit.

I agree with SomewhereInTime. It makes no sense to me to rip at all costs, from every angle, and at every possible chance the 2nd-most effective GM in club history for a good build and reasonably decent success over his tenure despite the current lousiness. Given all the factors, I think the Brewers have done pretty well under Doug Melvin. The depth of young talent hasn't been great for a while (since Fielder, Weeks, Braun, Hardy, Gallardo, etc. came up) & the last 10 months have been miserable for well-documented & well-discussed reasons. But outside of St. Louis, how many teams' GMs have a truly better track record? You can't just rattle off all the teams with big-to-ridiculous payrolls because they have dollars available (LA & NY & CHI & BOS' revenue streams, for instance!) that can create a safety net that MIL doesn't have -- those GMs can swing and miss (read: FAIL) more without paying a hefty price! The GM's typically in the room but the Farm Director is in charge of the draft. In light of that, I still don't get why some on this board practically worship Jack Z. for his time here (textbook guy to blame for several good but undisciplined hitters, not to mention about zilch in the way of SP prospects beyond Yo) yet want to blame Melvin instead of Rod Nichols for the current state of the Brewers' talent pipeline. When the Brewers were first building under Melvin, he filled holes with some fantastic nugget-mining that has continued (though less lately) over his whole tenure: Kolb, Turnbow, Podsednik, Axford, Henderson, Zach Duke... etc.... and turned some of those guys into other future assets (Axford now = Blazek). Melvin's also been pretty darn successful with his trades. Very few trades have been duds. For any dud you can cite, there are more than enough plus-moves too tip the overall scales in his favor. I don't believe you can count the Sabathia, Greinke, & Marcum trades as obvious losses because those moves netted two playoff berths which we might still be yearning for (since '82) had he not made those trades. Keep in mind that Michael Brantley was no blue-chipper and took many years to get actually good. Escobar, for as good as he is now, his first full year was so lousy (after a great 2 months when he first came up at the end of '10) that many were ripping on Melvin for trading Hardy (not to mention treating him badly re: FA eligibility) when it let a kid who really couldn't hit well or get on base respectably at all expose all his flaws over a his first full MLB season. Escobar's first year or two in KC, he was no offensive gem. And we know Cain couldn't stay in the lineup for quite a while. Lawrie is quite ordinary (still more hype than fulfilled potential) when he actually manages to stay healthy. . . While in the meantime, Matt LaPorta, Zach Jackson, Jeremy Jeffress, & Rob Bryson did nothing for their new organizations and Jake Odorizzi, while still young & promising, has hardly put it all together AND stayed healthy at the same time.. . . My point in this paragraph being that every team can cherry-pick a few obvious players given up in trades whom they'd want back. But on the whole, Melvin's trades have been far more winners than duds. I'm not saying Brewer Fandom should say "this has been good enough" -- surely no one with the team is truly satisfied (noting that pleased and satisfied are two totally different things). In the post-'94 era, many things contribue to stacking the deck against the Brewers that weren't such significant factors in Harry Dalton's glory days (recalling that the '82 Brewers were talked about as having one of the AL's highest payrolls), mainly meaning those things on the economic playing field (Yankees & Dodgers' cable deals come to mind as the most glaring examples). . . . I'm NOT saying Melvin deserves a pass. The current team isn't doing well -- as he's regularly said & claimed responsibility for -- and there's significant concern about its short- and long-term future building blocks. SomethingInTime is right that this ISN'T an all-or-nothing situation, as well as that the circumstances in MIL probably would've done in many lesser GMs. Doug Melvin may not be long for the GM chair anymore, and perhaps that change is needed (an opinion VERY well-voiced up to now). But these posts that continually bash him and seem convinced that he's nothing short of a complete franchise-ruining idiot are patently absurd.

Can we dump this Perez clown already? He's useless and makes Herrera look like Jeff Cirillo at the plate (relatively speaking, of course). Has it been 10 days yet so we can re-purchase Herrera's contract? Or does the 10-day rule not apply when a guy's been DFA'd? While we need a bench that's solid defensively, it does you little good if your bench guys can't ever get the occasional hit. Herrera's not great but he at least gets something done productively at the plate (meaning he's done enough to make you believe he's actually capable of driving in the occasional run), which is why I was totally on his bandwagon from spring training onward.

It's been well documented in MN that 1) Hunter has no interest in playing elsewhere, 2) the Twins may look to extend him for next year, too, and 3) he eventually wants to work in the Twins' front office. There was never a plan of signing him so they could deal him later. That notion is a matter of speculation or simply connecting the typical dots but not knowing the actual details of the situation.

It's easy to look at any team with lots of good prospects and think this. That they're playing such good baseball doesn't hurt. Translation: You may be right. However, as we've learned well, there are NO guarantees, so I'm not conceding them anything over the long run 'til they've clearly earned that fear from other teams.

Hunter is playing well and very possibly may re-up w/ MIN to play next year, too. There's little way the Twins are trading Sano anytime soon, let alone w/ Berrios. Sano & Buxton are two of the brightest-star prospects in all the minors. I like the idea behind the post, and with the Twins playing well, they're quite possibly facing the possibility of having almost too many well-qualified guys to be able to fit them all on the 25-man roster when they should legitimately be there (there was a nice column in the Mpls paper on this situation a couple weeks ago). But knowing what I know about the Twins, if they keep up anything close to the winning pace they're on, I don't see how the Brewers make for a very good match with them at this point.

A few thoughts/responses: - Above all, inadequate development has cost the Brewers more than any other flaw. - The A's haven't been to the World Series under Billy Beane. Sure, he makes headlines and won the winter press clippings battles this year, but his team's worse than last year. Outside OAK he's darn near achieved sabermetric sainthood, but he's not always the best GM in the world, either. - Re: the small-market GM comparison: Of those teams, only KC has made the World Series in this millenium, but their playoff drought was also longer than the Brewers', and they also only made it as the Wild Card like the Crew in '08. Those other teams are going off promise big-time now, though PITT's delivering on it better than the others. In the end, some of these teams will realize their potential but more will fall flat far sooner than they should've. . . . The comparison's really ultimately not too valid at the moment, though, because it's all matter of "snapshots" and MIL's trending downward and the other teams cited are trending upward. A few years ago that looks totally different. Ten years ago it was the Brewers who were everyone's "player development darlings" due to Weeks, Fielder, Hardy, Braun, Hart, Gallardo, etc. and the other teams cited here generally weren't anywhere close to being constant & viable threats to achieve lengthy success. - Hasn't in been re-hashed countless times that the Farm Director makes the calls re: drafting? It's Reid Nichols who should be fired first, not Doug Melvin. I don't understand why he's relatively teflon-coated re: the vitriol here while yet again Melvin's getting shelled for the poor drafts during his tenure. Jack Z gets credit for the success of his drafts (way too much, IMO, since his track record in MIL w/ pitching is mostly crapola) but Melvin should get fired for "overseeing" the lousy drafts? You can't have it both ways. - Furthermore on Jack Z & the analogy to the current Twins.... The current Twins' success came a bit out of the blue, but they're so strong from the farm standpoint because they've been at/near the very top of the draft for 4 years now -- much like the Brewers were when Jack Z hit on all those top picks. . . . Terry Ryan's background is in scouting and yet is also a dang good GM, which is finally bearing out again this year after Bill Smith ran the organization into the ground before getting canned. . . . - Furthermore (again), teams are on the shakiest ground when they earn lots of top picks but don't develop them. What I wish they'd done when they hired Ray Montgomery is either or also done a raid on some of the shining stars from the Cardinals' player development ranks. If the Cardinals can win with chronically low-round picks, any team can IF they do it right. . . . To use a hockey analogy, any GM can look good when his team drafts Toews & Kane in consecutive first rounds after being one of the worst teams in the league. The greater key is to develop all-stars and consistent high-end players year after year when you're near the top of the league. So if there's a model team to follow, it really should be St. Louis (which as a 1980-onward fan still really pains me to say). - The premise at the start of this thread that Melvin should be faulted for Fielder's leaving is ridiculous. The Brewers offered $20+MM/yr. contracts to Fielder, Sabathia, & Greinke. Yet they got even better offers and left. At least Greinke was serious about considering MIL's offers. Everyone's going on and on about responsible contracts and payroll limitations, yet the Brewers were supposed to top Detroit's offer to Prince? - It took Cruz a few years to find success in Texas, even going through waivers when ANY TEAM could've claimed him, yet NONE did. Per some of the logic present, that's huge evidence that all 29 non-Rangers GMs should've been be fired. - Neither Cain nor Brantley could hold a steady spot in their team's lineup in spite of repeated golden chances for at least the first couple years after they were traded. I'm not discrediting their current abilities and they'd both look quite good in MIL these days. However, that it took so long for them to develop into reliable & good MLB players shows that there were no guarantees with them, not ever. - CLE chose Brantley over Taylor Green as the PTBNL. Had Brantley fought the injuries and been re-sentenced to AAA due to his team signing a "proven vet" because they didn't trust him to develop sufficiently while playing in the bigs and so forth... in other words, lived out Taylor Green's fate instead of Green, Melvin would look even smarter. Green's star rose sooner & faster, including an incredible 2011 season AND displacing a proven vet to make the 25-man playoff roster. Then a series of bad luck, bad turns, plus a major year-killing injury ended any chances he had. I'd still love for him to turn his career back around and live up to his original top billing (he loyally returns to the Brewers' organization every year and is playing 3B for AA these days), but the odds obviously don't favor that happy ending at age 28 with very uninspiring numbers at Biloxi.

Unless I'm off base, you can't trade a guy you signed as a FA until 6 months after the date you signed him. That said, I don't know if that same time span applies when you're resigning your own FA, and therefore if it applies to K-Rod.

With Morneau out with concussion symptoms again, I doubt he's jumping to the top of anyone's potential trade lists right now.

The clamoring on this board for Roenicke to be fired had been getting louder and louder for about 2.5 years and many were convinced his presence was a major hindrance to the team having any success (like a 71-55 record before the Epic Collapse was sheer luck and ultimately could only have been aberration). If turning the team around wasn't the point of the move, then why the heck did Roenicke's continued presence matter so much to so many, and why fire him? Some here are so averse to Roenicke's good points that they're convinced they never factored in, never mattered at all, and eventually never really ever existed in the first place. Some posters here are convinced that he was purely inept, period, and no matter what evidence to the contrary proved otherwise, there's no way that could ever possibly be right because Roenicke was nothing more than an absolute idiot. He wasn't perfect, but he wasn't all bad, either.... The repetitive rants & endless vitriol are old and the guy's gone. Can we please finally move on?

It's funny how we're conditioned to think on this board over time. We undervalue many of our own assets, but if it were the Brewers looking to trade for SPs like Lohse & Garza, much of the talk likely would be re: how many Top 15 prospects we'd have to give up to acquire a healthy, proven arm like those guys both have. They're not a Greinke or Sabathia, but their career norms still point to 1.5 to 2 assets of the caliber we traded 3 of to get each of those guys -- and goodness knows we never asked KC or CLE to pick up part of the salary of either of those guys. It's a side point, but Lohse & Garza are both getting paid salaries a bit under Qualifying Offer levels, so it's not like in today's market they're on absurd contracts (meaning that comparable FA replacements for them would likely get paid more than those two guys are presently getting). I think if the Brewers hit the "significant rebuild" button, Lohse & Garza are significant assets to trade, and one thing Melvin's proved quite well over time is that he usually's pretty on target with his timing and maximizing the return on a trade given the circumstances at the time. I like that KC has some assets that might be worthwhile, but I wonder if the Brewers might do better trying to do business with teams more likely to make a move to put themselves over the top AND who have plenty of appealing & worthwhile younger players (teams like LAD, Houston, MN, & the Cubs are some teams that come to mind, maybe Washington).

The best the Brewers could do in trading Braun is hope to find someone young who produces like him.... then eventually have to pay the guy a Braun-esque salary to have any chance of retaining him long-term, which sounds totally stupid to me. The offense hasn't been good overall (Scooter, Aramis, Khris Davis, pre-injury Lucroy are all off to poor starts, and GoGo's not exactly a world-beater this year (yet) either), but Braun's finding his swing after 1.5 years of a finally-healed bad thumb (which started before his time on the naughty list) and his overall game looks pretty dang good to me. . . . It's like the Twins with Joe Mauer: like it or not, he's a guy that CAN be MVP like and is paid an elite player's salary (read: king's ransom), so much so that no one else would take him for anything close to his worth AND full contract, plus he's healthy & still young enough (read: not close to ancient), so you might as well figure he's part of the core they're trying to (re-)build around. . . . As noted, the pitching's been the biggest issue and it may take trading an attractive/valuable player or two (Lohse and Gomez come first to mind) to beef up the base of talented young arms. Even Aramis or Neal Cotts could net a low-level B-prospect, which is surely what David Ortiz was when the Twins got him (then known as David Arias) and Joe Mays in exchange for 3B Dave Hollins -- and Ramirez has the far better track record (though with more years on him) than Hollins did at the time of that trade.

JB12, I just checked & Centeno's had a whopping 9 ABs since he's been up. Whether he can hit or not, 9 pretty spread-out ABs isn't enough to prove it to me.... Now, whether Ashley deserves a look is a different question, and arguably he may indeed deserve a look. If Centeno gets sent down for that, what's to lose? However, Centeno's getting ABs at a nearly Rob Picciolo-esque rate (see: 1982 post-acquisition by MIL), which is grounds for . . . well . . . pretty much nothing in terms of judging his ability.

I still don't get the notion that the Brewers aren't developing players. True, they've not developed any superstars since Braun & Fielder hit the majors. But they're developing plenty of guys who are performing respectably as big-leaguers. Obviously the greater issue is the talent quotient and a lack of young or up-and-coming impact players. But to the initial point: 2 of the 3 OF starters are home-grown (Braun, Davis). 1 of the 4 IF starts is home-grown (Gennett) and another (Segura) was acquired for a high-end asset (trading Greinke). The starting C is home-grown (Lucroy). 3 out of 5 SPs are home-grown (Peralta, Fiers, Nelson). 2 of the 5 bench guys are home-grown (Maldonado & Rogers). Between the SPs and all position players, that's 9 out of 18 guys. Not shabby. The bullpen is cobbled together from everywhere as usual and has usually had a little better BFS (Brewers Farm System) representation, but it's had home-grown Kintzler & Thornburg & Wooten rotating in & out of one spot, plus Henderson's on the DL.

If you're only trading to clear the contract, and you have to throw in cash to make it happen, then there's no point. The goal in trading off veterans would be to gain young assets in return. If we're rebuilding, payroll isn't an issue. I think it's also obvious so far that Lind's doing just fine as an everyday 1B. He's totally mashing against righties as expected, and though his splits vs. LHP aren't stellar by any means, by themselves they're still loads better than what the Brewers put at 1B all last year (like OBP >50 points higher, I believe). Point: He's holding his own quite well as the everyday 1B.

Sorry if it's weird to quote myself, but I kept thinking about this earlier thing I posted as today wore on and one thing's worth clarifying: Now that they've hired Counsell, whether I like the move initially or not doesn't matter because I'm the die-hard Brewers fan that I am and I want the team to win. Therefore, as with any new manager we've ever hired, I hope it turns out to be a master stroke and that he turns out to be the best manager we've had with the best records and success over time to bear that out.

Joe Maddon? If he isn't the perfect manager, he's pretty darn close. Joe Maddon was not a winning manager when TB's talent level wasn't good enough to win. Same holds true with any manager. Other than the fact that both GMs under whom he's managed are high-end advanced metrics guys (which points to the front office, not the manager's office), what exactly makes Joe Maddon so close to perfect for you? It's not that I don't like him as a manager. But I'd still take Bruce Bochy over Maddon b/c somehow his teams find ways to win the World Series when more highly-talented rosters fall by the wayside or don't even make the playoffs. . . . Lightning can strike once, a second time could still involve quite a lot of luck, but 3 times in 5 years with a steadily evolving roster and plenty of older vets is hardly luck.

Correct, there is a reason: He chose to take a year off before possibly pursuing other openings.

The prospect of Counsell as manager makes me wish they'd not fired Roenicke. I'm totally serious. I can't stand Counsell as a ballplayer and can't stand the love for him on this site. All I think about re: him is the new version of A.J. Hinch as D-Backs manager, which was nothing short of an insanely bad choice. I see more Bart Starr (loved former player) or A.J. Hinch (supposedly smart front office guy) than truly shrewd move here. I'll gladly eat crow if I'm wrong. The comments about not hiring a re-tread are laughable. Other than Macha, since the mid '80s (i.e., since Bamberger Pt. 2 ended), we've only hired managers with no MLB managerial experience, and the cumulative results of hiring such a high % of newbies proves nothing about it being a good idea.

This season's killing me so far just like every other hard-core Brewers fan, but I'm not convinced it's Roenicke's fault that now the pitchers can't make good pitches when, for most of last year, they did, or that Segura makes errors every other game. It's the starters more than the BP that's the majority of the problem. I'm not blind. I'm not stupid. Managers inevitably are scrutinized -- it's part of the job -- and none are perfect. But sometimes the quick, emotionally satisfying move is the wrong long-term move to make. The best organizations often realize & favor the value of stability over time and not making knee-jerk decisions. . . . It'd be one thing if these players haven't had long stretches of playing well under Roenicke, but they've actually done just that. I forget who said it earlier in the thread, but pretty much the vast majority of posters on this board don't miss any chance to criticize the living daylights out of whomever the Brewers' manager is, and then end up on a years-long soapbox that he should be fired. So while firing Roenicke would satisfy the majority of the vultures on this board, it's not automatically the best or right move. Keep in mind that, given the nature of a board like this, firing Roenicke is only going to bring on board the next guy that everyone will be doing the war chants about firing after his first month, anyway. Up here in MN Wild country, in each of the past two years, the Wild have had an insanely terrible stretch. But both years they've pulled it together by re-finding "their game" and playing the way the coach & his staff have been trying to get them to play all along. In both years, they've made the playoffs, which was no small feat. The one most obvious difference is that the Wild's two putrid stretches were December into January, not as painfully-exposed as season-ending and season-opening stretches. This year, when the zealots and social-media vultures were convinced the only solution possible -- yet again -- was to fire the coach, the owner & GM realized where the issue was and staunchly supported the coach. Thanks in no small part to getting a good goalie, the team started playing the right way, which started the best 2nd half in the entire NHL. . . . . I'm not saying stability or a single trade alone is the "magic bullet" the Brewers need to cure their woes and overcome their nightmarish start. But the Brewers, like the Wild, have lots of players simply playing tons worse than their long-proven career norms. So sometimes the right decision IS patience. . . . Eventually, if things don't turn around and the season's totally shot, then Melvin & MA have every reason to scrutinize if the team's failure is truly due to Roenicke, either because players quit playing for him, or because it no longer matters the message he gives because they're not hearing him or able to make effective changes in their game under his leadership. If those are the significant issues, then Roenicke deservedly is on very shaky ground. If the team's so loose and undisciplined that they just plain can't play fundamentally soundly (at least reasonably so within the given skill sets of the players on hand) over a long enough period of time, then that's another red flag. To try to summarize, I think it's quite possible MA is a lot smarter than most people here give him credit for -- not necessarily re: baseball, but for sure in terms of his approach to his "real" career. I think it's pretty doggone safe to assume that he's been so successful in that realm because he's wise enough to know the difference between bad investments vs. solid investments that are simply enduring a rough stretch in the market. Sometimes the wiser thing to do is wait out what you know is just a rough stretch, vs. the scenario of turning over your entire portfolio b/c you know that the core issue is simply bad investments. So if it's me, I still sit tight for a while because as lousy as they've been so far -- and there's so much that's incredibly discouraging about these 3-4 weeks -- I'm not yet convinced they're truly this bad (like many were convinced that the 71-55 Brewers last year were still a mirage in spite of 150 days in first place). If the Brewers start to "find their game" or show enough legit signs of "regressing much closer to their norms" over the next month, I'll feel some optimism about getting back on track is merited and, if really lucky, maybe there's even a chance they creep up on the edge the wild card race. If the issues stay this bad or get worse by Memorial Day, though, once the 3 DLers of our starting 8 are back and the rotation's had time to right their flaws & messes, then the temp under Roenicke will be justifiably scorching. It was June 1, 1982, after all, when Harry Dalton fired Buck Rodgers.

Doesn't mean he was, either. Supposedly he was tested more than anyone else in MLB that year due to the positive test in the 2011 playoffs. Just because you're suspicious and want to doubt doesn't mean you're right. There's an integrity issue with Braun which no one can fully know now and regarding which only time will tell the truth on IF he can stay healthy. To my thinking, Braun's MVP-caliber 2012 legitimizes the quality of his play from all other years. His production never drastically changed 'til his 2013 injuries & suspension. In the end, Braun & Cooper make my list right below Molitor & Yount, who I'd rank 1-2 in that order. Robin's more loved because he stuck around (b/c he wasn't screwed by Bando's contract offer) even though Mollie was the far better player at the time he left -- the contracts offered should've been reversed, with Mollie offered the raise & Yount the reduction (seriously, look at their stats, especially how pedestrian or less Yount became immediately after his '89 MVP year!). I never understood that at the time, and while it's a rare black mark in the first part of his tenure, I can't ever look favorably on Bando's cumulative work as a GM because of it (the erosion of the franchise (MLB & the whole farm system) in his later years providing a suitably lousy ending to his tenure). Regarding the others, IMO.... - Gantner, even though "one of us" and quite loyal & beloved, was solidly average at best and thus doesn't belong on the list. - Thomas was a HR-hitting hero from the glory days but wasn't a terribly good overall hitter and, in spite of his all-out approach in the OF, thus doesn't belong on the list. - Fingers had almost 2 full top-notch years on the Brewers and was largely below average thereafter once he finally made it back -- definitely a HOF'er but not a Top-4 Brewer even remotely. - Prince is the closest to Braun as #4 on the list. But he was never as consistent a clutch hitter as Braun and was a league-bottom defensive 1B while Braun is a solid-to-plus OF whose only true defensive black mark is the year he played 3B. If you want to start casting stones at Braun, cast 'em at Mollie, too. If you're going the route of the morality soapbox, then that approach needs to be applied consistently. We learned in the 2000s that the effective of steroids on the body are mainly in the realm of aiding with recovery time & sustaining an energy level, really much the same as the effects of cocaine. If many players' drug issues in the '70s & '80s -- at least with uppers like coke, let alone things like amphetamines and "pep pills" and "greenies" -- got the media coverage and obsessive/sensationalistic public scrutiny (tabloid journalism, really, in many respects) then that they would if they'd happened now, there well could be another whole generation of HOF'ers not eligible for the Hall. The current selectivity is just screwy for the highly uneven "playing field" of character judgement that it's created. Gaylord Perry cheated blatantly for a large portion of his career -- "intently cheating to gain competitive advantage" was the gist of the phrase we heard all the time for several years in the steriod-outing period -- but everyone laughs about his tactics and has no problem sitting on the dais at Cooperstown with him. Ditto for Tony LaRussa, who admitted 3 months after his retirement that he indeed ordered his pitchers to throw at Braun in that September 2011 series, lying through his teeth AND going on the attack in the media about the accusations as much or more as Braun -- cheating not only to gain competitive advantage but also blatantly risking the health/career of opposing players, which is another whole level of compromised integrity, especially as the guy in charge of the team. I'm not condoning steroids, cocaine or other uppers, or the actions of either Braun or Mollie. Rather, I agree big-time with Jayson Stark and Jim Palmer, that in the end, guys with the requisite numbers absolutely should get into the HOF and history should be allowed to tell & judge the rest of the story. . . . And while this isn't an HOF discussion, the nature of what the survey's about essentially is focused on similar performance-based attributes.