The Brewers announced today that longtime GM Doug Melvin will move to an advisory position within the organization, and the team will begin hunting for a new GM immediately (Twitter link). Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tweets that it was Melvin’s decision to begin the transition now as opposed to after the season. MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reports (on Twitter) that the Brewers have hired executive search firm Korn Ferry to organize the team’s pursuit of a new general manager. The priority, according to McCalvy, will be to target younger candidates with knowledge of analytics.
Melvin, 63, became Milwaukee’s general manager nearly 13 years ago and prior to that spent eight years as GM of the Rangers. He was the GM in Texas for the team’s first three postseason appearances and helped to construct a pair of playoff teams during his Brewers tenure as well, including a 96-win team that made it to Game 6 of the NLCS against the Cardinals in 2011
As one would expect with such a lengthy tenure at the top of the team’s baseball operations hierarchy, Melvin made a number of notable transactions in his time with the Brewers, including a handful of high-profile trades. In 2008, Melvin acquired CC Sabathia from the Indians in a rental deal that sent Matt LaPorta, Michael Brantley, Zach Jackson and Rob Bryson to Cleveland. He swung another deal for an ace in the 2010-11 offseason, landing Zack Greinke from the Royals in exchange for Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress (who has, of course, made his way back to the Brewers).
Melvin ultimately traded Greinke away a season and a half later, acquiring Jean Segura, Johnny Hellweg and Ariel Pena in exchange. He’s also architected extensions for Carlos Gomez (three years, $24MM), Ryan Braun (eight years, $45MM, followed by an additional five years, $105MM), Jonathan Lucroy (five years, $11MM) and, in a less successful decision, Rickie Weeks (four years, $38.5MM).
Melvin’s recent transactions have been something of a mixed bag. The Adam Lind-for-Marco Estrada swap has benefited both parties, and the re-signing of Francisco Rodriguez has, to this point, been a solid move. Kyle Lohse made good on the first two years of his three-year, $33MM contract and justified the expenditure despite a poor 2015 season. However, the Matt Garza contract currently looks like a misstep, and recent seasons have seen Cain, Escobar and Odorizzi emerge as very valuable pieces.
This summer, Melvin drew praise for the return for Gomez and Mike Fiers — a four-player package that brought Brett Phillips, Josh Hader, Domingo Santana and Adrian Houser to Milwaukee. He also landed a nice piece from the Orioles when trading Gerardo Parra to Baltimore: right-hander Zach Davies.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Well I can’t say that I’m shocked
This GM job got a lot more desirable when he made the deal he made with the Astros instead of the deal he would have made with the Mets.
It’s a GM job, probably not to many in the league that a young exec would balk at…maybe the Marlins job
True, was more just saying adding a potential superstar in Brett Phillips plus 3 other potential above average major leaguers was better than adding 2 potential above average major leaguers in Flores and Wheeler with already more service time accrued.
Definitely like the Astros deal better. For some reason Melvin got pillaged, but he did well generally. Maybe he felt the brunt of fan displeasure by not signing Fielder and selling players…but that was going to be the reality. That Braun/Fielder/Hart/Gallardo core was solid.
Jerry Dipoto will be all over this. Perfect fit for both.
Jerry Dipoto would be a great fit atleast in my opinion but theres still one little problem…..Doug Melvin is still there atleast in a “Advisory Role”. Jerry Dipoto would command atleast some power without someone looking over his shoulder second guessing his every move and Melvin wont allow that.
And you know that how?
I know DiPoto is available, but with the number of potentially capable young GMs out there..I’m not sure DiPoto isn’t swimming back in that pool. Not knocking DiPoto in the least…just trying to say its maybe not musical chairs. Dombrowski I completely understand almost being able to open almost any job he wants…but maybe DiPoto will need to take his turn again.
I doubt a demoted gm would have much power…
Melvin wasn’t demoted. He semi-retired. He’s 63 and been in the job 13 years. He doesn’t need the day to day headaches but he’s still going to be close advisor to the owner.
It’s fairly common for a quasi-retiriing exec to stay on as a special assistant. Baseball ops typically run in a much more integrated approach than is commonly acknowledged. Scouting directors back down travel and become “special assistant the GM”.. That kind of thing
But he still is in a lesser role. An adviser. He is not going to have any amount of power over the next gm.
CC was traded for Matt LaPorta, Michael Brantley, Zach Jackson and Rob Bryson . It was either Brantley or Green depending on if the Brewers made the playoffs
Also, they played the Cardinals in 2011 NLCS not themselves
Well I know Ewitkows is correct, but this one will require some more research!
Haha — thanks for the corrections.
Funny that LaPorta was the centerpiece of that deal. Looks bad not having Brantley, but CC rolled in Milwaukee…and certainly Cleveland had every right to get back a major league talent for him. If Brantley had come on in Milwaukee… Brewers might not get CC then and now have Brantley in only a somewhat better lineup and burning his prime years….he’d have essentially been Alex Gomez
Dave Dombrowski?
As a Brewers fan, I wish
Dombrowski doesn’t fit that “will target younger candidates” mold. Besides he’d be too expensive.
Dombrowski is a better fit in Seattle when Jack Z is shown the door at the end of the season.
Jack Z has been a mess for sure. It’s one thing to disagree with a GMs plan…a.wholly other to not even know what the plan is.
I’m just kind of waiting for someone to give Dombrowski or Jerry Dipoto a 8 figure salary. 2 guys who are really good big money GMs with a good amount of teams (Boston, Philly, Angels, Jays and now Brewers, etc) all needing GM/Pres for next year.
Throw Seattle into that mix.
Either one would be an improvement on Jerome Williams.
What has Dipoto done to deserve an 8 figure salary? He was a brief interim manager for the Diamondbacks and had only one major signing in LA that didn’t have Moreno’s fingerprints all over it.. He still has quite a bit to prove before he can be compared to Epstein/Beane/Dombrowski..
DiPoto seems to be the name I see brought up, because I think many can’t name very many potential young GMs in the game. I’m not sure he proved anything in Anaheim. He’s kind of a blank slate.
Overall….I think more pluses than minuses. The deals for Grienke and Sabathia were a huge reason the Brewers made the playoffs. He got some decent talent for Zack in the LAA trade. Doug has been a good GM having to deal with the problems small market teams have and the ego problems in Dallas with the ownership.
Totally agree.. Braun’s second extension was his only major blunder.. If Brantley hadn’t been the minor piece included in the CC trade that one would go down as one of the better trades of the past 10 years.. He did give up a lot for Greinke but compared to what AA gave up for Price this year he didn’t overpay by much.. He was going for it and made the trade hoping Greinke would put him over the top.. It almost worked but the difference between Greinke and Price is that Greinke was controllable for 2 years and still returned some decent players when Melvin traded him away..
For all the crap people liked to give Doug on local sports radio around here, he had an overall very good tenure as our GM, and we are a better organization for it. After the trade deadline he just had, and after Mark Attanasio confirmed we are looking at a rebuild (hopefully no more than three years he said today), our GM job may look significantly more attractive than it did a couple months ago when it first came out that Melvin was looking to transition to a new role.
My wishlist starts with Kim Ng, and also includes Ray Montgomery, Jerry Dipoto (though I’m guessing that Attanasio saying the new GM would have to accept Craig Counsell as manager rules him out, considering the Scioscia situation), Shiraz Rehman, and Mike Girsch.
I like that the manager is hired and the GM has to take him.
Boswell had a nice comment yesterday in the Post about the corporate-type managers that have taken over baseball. Kind of being a supervisor that takes instruction from the front office, analytic department and scouts. Tells his coaches to follow what they want done as he is a go-along get-along sort of guy that keeps a cool head, makes the percentage moves, and chats up the players. The end result is a lot of the same baseball and less and less teams that have any sort of personality.
Brewers have been playing better once Counsell had a little time to adjust.
“will target younger candidates”. The age discrimination lawyers ears perked up when they read that.
Yeah, sure, i bet he “resigned”.
Terrible job in identifying talent, and have gotten much worse over the last few seasons.
They would be better off giving Uecker the job, since at least he has a clue what players have talent, and which are garbage.
Drafted Brett Lawrie, Michael Brantley, Lorenzo Cain, and Alcides Escobar. It’s not that he couldn’t identify talent. It’s that he couldn’t keep it
Well, he sold it to make a couple runs…can’t really fault that. Greinke was big for them…and Cain and Escobar were a few years from being major contributors…but KC did get some value there.
Only deal that was a head scratcher was Lawrie for Marcum, but Lawrie might have been Melvin trying to move a bad clubhouse character…Jays didn’t really get much from Lawrie. Guess you could say they got Donaldson for Lawrie…but that’s connecting dots
Probably should also include Lawrie for Marcum trade.
Which, in retrospect, looks pretty great for the Brewers now. I remember it was questioned back then, but right now we can look at it and say we got a major contributor to our 2011 postseason run, and only gave up what appears to be a big headache in Brett Lawrie.
Who Toronto was able to flip for a MVP candidate in Donaldson.
They gave up much more than Lawrie for Donaldson.. In a couple of years it will be known as the Donaldson-Graveman swap..
I wish Red Sox move Cherington to whatever position but GM.
Dombrowski
You are not getting Dombrowski. so stop thing about it