New GM Taylor
stirs
the Brewers’ pot
by Tom Rathkamp
 emember
when you were little and your grandmother was making soup? She would add
an ingredient to the pot, taste it, then add another ingredient, taste it
again – until maybe she got it right? A little salt here, a smidgen of
pepper there. Then she would scoop up a bowl for you. When you tasted it,
it was either "just right," or had too much salt or not enough
pepper. Sometimes you pondered, "Why not just start over
grandma?"
Well, the Milwaukee Brewers
baseball club just might be doing that. This team can’t be fixed with a
little of this, and a little of that. In fact, most of what’s in the
bowl is stale. Adding one little ingredient here and tweaking one spice
there won’t help the broth. In fact, what they need is an entire new
recipe. Holding the cookbook now is the new chef, General Manager Dean
Taylor.
As a Milwaukee native and
lifetime Milwaukee Brewers fan, this off-season has been a blessing. After
suffering through another lame duck season, the serenity of not having to
watch any more games until the new millennium is quite comforting. They
hired a new manager, Davey Lopes, and Taylor. The "Hot Stove"
league (baseball’s metaphor for its off-season) is in full bloom and the
Brewers have engineered the biggest trade thus far.
On Monday of this week, Milwaukee
participated in a nine-player deal involving four teams. The Brewers dealt
third baseman Jeff Cirillo, pitcher Scott Karl, and some cash to the
Colorado Rockies; the Rockies traded third baseman Vinny Castilla to the
Tampa Bay Devil Rays, pitcher Justin Miller and cash to the Oakland
Athletics, pitcher Jamey Wright and catcher Henry Blanco to the Brewers;
the Athletics sent pitcher Jimmy Haynes to the Brewers; and, The Devil
Rays shipped pitcher Rolando Arrojo and infielder Aaron Ledesma to the
Rockies. (Now close your eyes and recite that backwards.)
At face value, the Brewers got
the old shaft in this deal. A quick glance at the statistics supports this
assessment:
Old Brewers
Jeff Cirillo .326 AVG., 98 runs
scored, 15 HR’s, 88 RBI
Scott Karl 11-11 4.78 ERA
New Brewers
Jamey Wright 4-3, 4.87 ERA 54
walks, 49 strikeouts
Jimmy Haynes 7-12, 6.34 ERA, 80
walks, 93 strikeouts
Henry Blanco .232 BA, 6 HRs, 28
RBIs
Jeff Cirillo is a
well-established, consistent veteran who hits for average but lacks power.
Scott Karl is steady and unspectacular, but not getting any better. The
three newcomers have potential but are grossly unproven. Taylor didn’t
get any stars, but he did get the "type" of players they needed:
pitchers with pop, and a catcher who doesn’t hoist a white flag every
time a base-runner attempts a steal. (In 1999, Blanco threw out 37 of 96
runners trying to steal. That’s 39%. Five Brewer catchers threw out a
paltry 31 out of 208 runners, good for 15%.). With Cirillo and Karl slated
to make approximately $6 million combined, and the three newcomers making
near $2 million collectively, Taylor has some money to play with. Trading
additional higher priced veterans for young potential will free up even
more cash, a commodity the Brewers aren’t exactly swimming in.
Player for player, did the
Brewers get the better of this deal? Of course not. Was it a deal they had
to make? Only if this marks the advent of several other deals that will
completely alter the makeup of this stagnant franchise.
Eager to prove his worth, Taylor
approached the recent winter meetings with the prospect of making a deal
or two – or three or four. He concentrated on addressing the Brewers’
weaknesses and served notice that there are no sacred cows on this club,
including Cirillo (quite possibly their best player). Taylor’s
underlying motive, however, is to stir the pot often enough that something
less recognizable – and hopefully more favorable - appears on the field
in 2000. When you rely on the same old players and continue to run in
place, it’s time to re-tool.
The disparity between
small-market and big-market teams is well documented and widely argued.
The Brewers’ meager status puts GM’s like Taylor in a more precarious
position than his old boss at Atlanta, John Suerholtz. Until they move
into the new ballpark in 2001, they won’t have the revenue to truly
compete with the big boys and sign a superstar. Lord knows we’ve
witnessed enough mediocrity and futility here to fill a new stadium.
The soup has contained the same
old tired ingredients far too long. Even if it doesn’t taste better next
season, at least it will be different. Just seeing fresh new faces in
Brewer uniforms will humor this frustrated fan. Anything more will be a
bonus.
Those of you in New York reading
this might lift an eyebrow at such modest expectations. But before we can
dream of a 1957 reprisal – Milwaukee’s lone World Series crown (over
the Yankees, by the way) - we’ll just have to accept incremental
improvement and modest hope.
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