A team with nothing happening

My feelings about the Milwaukee Brewers currently, following general manager Doug Melvin’s latest comments (Note: I posted this on a forum elsewhere, but it felt appropriate to copy it here as well).

I guess I’m just really disappointed in how things have
developed in the past year or so. Some of it is bad luck, as can happen
to any sports franchise. Corey Hart got injured at the absolute worst
possible time, and I guess there isn’t much of a market for big slugging
1Bs such as Prince Fielder right now. No one could have seen Hoffman
completely dropping off a cliff since last season and basically killing
any trade value he would have had, either. However, I also think Melvin
has demonstrated a lack of foresight, and a lack of aggressiveness in
addressing the club’s core issues. I’m just not seeing any sort of long
term planning going on right now to make sure this team makes a serious
run at a championship while Ryan Braun and Yovani Gallardo are still here; and it
really concerns me. Maybe Melvin does have a strategy in hand for the
off-season, but his latest comments don’t really foreshadow anything
promising.

I can just foresee now that we go into next season again with Hart and
Fielder, after Melvin states he wasn’t getting good trade offers during
the Hot Stove season. We’ll sign a veteran reliever to replace Hoffman,
and another Doug Davis/Braden Looper type to fill out he rotation. The club will
make a play for Cliff Lee (the only truly good free agent starter on the
market this winter), but get blown out of the water by the New York
Yankees. Melvin will sign a veteran Russel Branyan type bench player that will
play pretty well. Finally, the team will play well at the start of the
season, but fade in June and July because the rotation isn’t good
enough. Fielder finally gets dealt for an OK-ish middle of the rotation
starter with 2-3 years of service time left, and maybe a decent relief
pitcher and other spare parts. Hart plays decently, but not as well as
in 2010, and ends up departing in free agency after the 2011 season.

Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic. I certainly hope I am. However,
the overall makeup of this team just has not gotten it done since
October ’08. As Albert Einstein famously said, “Insanity: doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It’s time
for this team to start doing things differently and thinking outside the
box a bit more. We heard enough about this current core of players to
expect bigger and better things than a single “one and done” playoff
run.