Brewers Continue Rebuilding Plan
With the trade of Adam Lind, easily their most consistent hitter last season, the Brewers have officially gone into full blown rebuilding mode. In return for Lind the Brewers received three teenage pitchers from the Seattle Mariners, none of whom are above the Class A level of the minor leagues. Newly hired General Manager David Stearns is clearly implementing his rebuilding process in Milwaukee and fans can only hope that it goes as well as the rebuilding process did in Houston.
Losing seasons are inevitable for small market baseball teams. Unable to spend like the big clubs, teams like Milwaukee are forced to draft intelligently and sign reclamation projects hoping to turn their careers around; both sides knowing full well that if that player is able to turn his career around then he will be traded to any team offering prospects. A prime example of that is when the Brewers kept resigning Francisco Rodriguez. Any prospects that develop too quickly and force the team to begin their arbitration earlier than expected faces the grim probability of being traded as well. The Atlanta Braves just traded Shelby Miller for three great prospects from the Arizona Diamondbacks, but he was only available because he is 25 years old and likely at his most valuable to the Braves organization. Just as important was the fact that the Braves are also rebuilding but are not expecting to compete for a playoff spot for 3 or more years down the line, at which point Miller will no longer be the cheap player that they desire.
Few people are fans of rebuilding years, and how could you be. Some fan bases are stuck in a perpetual rebuilding mode because the “draft and develop” strategy is even harder to implement than the “sign every available free agent” strategy. If you sign a disappointing player but money isn’t a concern for your club, you just sign the best guy available at that position the next offseason. If you draft a first baseman that doesn’t pan out, you often aren’t certain for many years, at which point if you spend another high draft pick on a first baseman you have to wait for him to develop.
Stearns did a good job developing the Houston Astros into a playoff contender in a short amount of time, so Brewers fans shouldn’t be too leery of him initially. However, if the Brewers’ farm system doesn’t turn into one of the best in baseball in the next three years then questions will begin to arise. Fans can always grasp onto a good future if the present is not so good. If your future looks as bleak as the present does, which is the case currently in Milwaukee, then nobody will want to invest, emotionally or financially, in the Brewers.
Expect more veterans to be traded as the winter turns into spring and spring turns into summer. Remain hopeful, because veterans like Ryan Braun and Jonathan Lucroy will not be of much use anymore when this team is finally ready to compete again.
