Brewers: I called it in May

I'm going to take another crack at this blog thing, but not post as often. With summer over I'm hoping to be able to spend more time posting and less time debating what to post.

I was looking back at my past posts and say this post dealing with Brewers in May and thought this would be a good post to pick back up on. The first thing I would like to say is..... I told you so. The Brewers sucked for the rest of May, Rickie Weeks has been replaced with Scooter which was then covered up with his "injury", the budget bullpen has given up game after game. The years of trading away the upcoming talent has led the Brewers to be in cellar while Pittsburgh and Kansas City battling for playoff places for many years to come.

The Brewers do not have the benefit like Pittsburgh or KC, we do not have much if any minor league talent upcoming that can step in that has not been called up already. Sean Halton is still a so-so player along with a disappointing season for Hunter Morris plus Mat Gamel tearing something every year leaves the first base position very uncertain.

The third base position is another area of concern, with the possible exception of Taylor Green, nobody has ever stood out as even a remote possibility of coming up since Ryan Braun. I know people will say that Mat Gamel was at third, but we all know that he was going to first base once Prince left.

So, how do you fix the Milwaukee Brewers?

1. New Hitting Coach - This is more of an understatement, the Brewers have been plagued with hitting coaches that fall in love with the long ball with the expense of the strikeout. We need a hitting coach that can relate to the young players and wants to stick around. In recent years, Sveum was the closest to breaking our bad batter habits. This hitting coach has to understand that you can not solely rely on the long ball. Look at St. Louis right now, they are at the top of the league in record and in all batting categories with the exception of Home Runs.
2. Invest in the Bullpen - It's time to end the era of the "Budget Bullpen", it is time to invest money in someone who is young and can pitch consistently. I'm not saying go out and get an all star bullpen, but go out and get one good player to help.
3. Quit selling the future - The past five years have been like the Stock Market Crash in 1929, a lot of people were getting rich with quick short term gains, but in the end were in the poor house. The same holds true with a baseball team, if you sell off your long term solutions for the short game, you will have a losing club in a couple of years. It is time to stop selling the minor leagues away and start keeping some of these players

There is no reason that the Brewers could not play winning baseball in a couple years if they did not employee the above suggestions.

Now I can not go an entire Brewers post without saying something about my "favorite" GM in MLB Doug Melvin. Doug has really had it tough this year of all the years with the sort of bait-in-switch Ryan Braun pulled on him this year denying everything about his PED's along then taking the deal from Grandpa Selig. Still that was no excuse for the budget bullpen along with not addressing the first/third base situation.

Its time to let the rookies play and wait until next year!

Brewers have season ending issues

Long time no posting... I had to take a little break from posting, but now I'm back to talk baseball, specifically Brewers baseball. In case you did not notice the Brewers were able to pull one out Monday against the Pirates, but one win in May does not make a season.

The Brewers as a whole and in the long term are all on the 60-Day DL with season ending problems. The most recent series against the Reds and Cardinals go a long way in proving that pitching wins you games in the long term and home runs win you a couple of games.

Brewers GM Doug Melvin and his budget bullpen time over time have caused the Brewers major trouble. Now the starters are getting into the mix when it comes to giving up runs with Burgos giving up a nice 10 spot the other night due to the overused pen. Years of pillaging the minor leagues for the short term victory has now come bite Melvin.

If you look at the trade that essentially won them the division, the Brewers gave up four major league players for a year and a half rental (Cain, Escobar, Jeffress, Odorizzi) and while winning is important while you can, long term success is more important. These guys would have would have all played important parts of the lineup for the Brewers since we would not have Segura.

The next person I would like to zero in on is Rickie Weeks. Whether the numbers the support this or not, Weeks has regressed in the past 4 years overall at the plate and remained level with the defense. Weeks has lost his way in how to bat and what kind of style he played when he was first called up to the major leagues. When he first came up, he was a average power, speed player that would beat out the high chopping play. Now Weeks has packed on the pounds and is carrying a couple of jelly rolls. I really wonder how many half step out plays Weeks would have beat out if he would drop about 10 pounds.

Do not hold your hopes up for this season, the team structure is too far gone to win anything. The overall issues of the Brewers in the end center around them being good, but just not good enough to compete in the division or in the wild card playoffs. The Brewers need to work on establishing the pitching in the minors and the draft. If the Brewers do take their lumps for the next couple of seasons and do not trade away the future, there is no reason this team can not win the division. 

Brewers: I saw this coming

With another loss early in the in season to the Diamondbacks on Sunday, the Brewers fall to 1-5 on the season. While most baseball people would say that it is too early to panic, I say just say the opposite. Especially given the lack of high quality free agent moves the Brewers did this past off season, it is time to look at making some changes.

The reason that this season is off to such a season is Doug Melvin. This bad start is the fundamental problem I have with Brewers GM Doug Melvin, he sometimes does not do the hard work to find that value for a free agent in the off season like another GM's would. Melvin employs a more wait and see philosophy. Melvin does not change the equation, he does not make the big off season move but instead we struggle in the same areas year after year.

If the Brewers are close in July, he pulls off a "Big Deal" and pillages the minor league system. We usually end up with some washed up pitchers (Cough.. Michael Gonzalez.. Cough Cough) who make their final playing destination Milwaukee.

Another problem with Melvin is the drafting that has occurred under his reign. Now I understand that is really took over a club that was underfunded and at the bottom of the barrel, but Attanasio has been in control of the club since 2005, so we have been able to put the club out of the basement and yet we do not see any major draftee's from him in the major leagues with the exception of Yovani Gallardo and Ryan Braun. Most of the players that came up were the product of Dean Taylor or via data that remained during Melvin's first year.

It is time to relook at the talent we are bringing up from the minor leagues, Kris Davis continues to struggle, Mark Rodgers is non-existent, Fries is getting wipe lash from all home runs he is giving up, Thronburg is having troubles (I think we brought him up too early). We rely on trades too much and wash up free agents, it time to not only look at the talent on the field, but who placed them there which means I would send Melvin packing!