Brewers Shake Up Wednesday

Shake Up Wednesday

On Wednesday night the Milwaukee Brewers lost their second consecutive game to the lowly San Diego Padres. This seemed to be the last straw for Brewer General Manger Doug Melvin who announced that they were firing pitching coach Bill Castro, sending JJ Hardy to Triple A and assigning Bill Hall for assignment, another words, releasing him.

I’m not sure if the move came out of frustration over how the team has played or frustration over how the ownership and management of this team has failed to take the next step from an average team to a World Series contender.

To address the latter first, it never seems to amaze me that I am the only one who seems to get this about Major League Baseball when it is so painfully obvious. YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY TO BE A CONTENDER YEAR IN AND YEAR OUT PEOPLE! Just because the Florida Marlins captured lightning in a bottle a couple of years and the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers made the playoffs a year ago, does not mean that every team can do that. And it ESPECIALLY doesn’t mean that teams can do it for an extended period of time. The Marlins stunk both years after their World Series championships and really haven’t done much above average in any of their other 15 seasons. The Rays and Brewers, although not terrible, will not be in contention come September this year.

Meanwhile, the teams that spend money like the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Braves are in contention for a championship every year. A bad year for them is finishing around .500 and missing the playoffs by a few games. That is a good year for the Brewers, Rays and Marlins amongst many other small market teams.

Brewer management, YOU HAVE TO SPEND DOUBLE WHAT YOU ARE SPENDING NOW IF YOU WANT TO CONTEND FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS! They don’t get it. They think they can be the team that bucks the system.

As for the moves, none of these moves will affect performance the remainder month and a half of the season, but I have a small take on each one. The firing of Castro is ridiculous. There is no pitching coach on this planet that could have succeeded with the hand dealt this year. He was obviously the fall guy. And I don’t see things improving just because Chris Bosio comes on board. Hardy going to the minors is probably good as long as he is not down there long. Let him try to work out of this year-long slump and then bring him back up in September to give him another shot at turning it around at this level before the end of the year. Releasing Hall should have happened last Winter. It was obvious at that time that this guy no longer had Major League stuff. It’s unfortunate. Bill Hall is a great guy and gave it a ton of effort. But it just didn’t work out.

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