It’s unbelievable how fast time flies by, doesn’t it?  In only 5 short weeks the Nationals will take on the Americans for the All-Star game, getting us to the halfway-point of the season. Then, only 2 weeks after that the trade deadlines appears.  And less than six months ago, Doug Melvin was busy making moves to make the 2010 Brewers playoff contenders.  Being this far in the season, let’s take a look at how those moves have fared out so far.  I will look at the signings of Greg Zaun, Doug Davis, and Randy Wolf as well as the partings of Mike Cameron, Jason Kendall, and Braden Looper. 

Parting ways with Jason Kendall to sign Greg Zaun to a 1 year deal/2nd year club option. 
There was one thing for sure that Kendall was that Zaun is not-reliable and durable.  Kendall started over 130 games both years he was with us.  In 2009, he started over 150 games!  That’s pretty unheard of for a catcher.   However, his pitchers had one of the worst ERA’s in the the league, he didn’t throw out runners, and he couldn’t hit for the same high average that he had done previously.  Something wasn’t working, and there definately needed to be a switch.  In steps Zaun, a switch hitting catcher who cost $2 million more, but could do all the same things Kendall could do with a little better bat.  We were fooled on opening day when he threw out the first runner who tried to steal on him.  We hoped he would break out of his early-season slump.  But I think most Brewer fans were not too hurt to see him go to the DL.  Kottaras has a lot of talent, and we were already to see Lucroy make the big jump to the majors.  The kid just seems like a ball player.  Like he is supposed to be there. 

The harsh truth of the matter is, Kendall and Zaun both do nothing well.  Kendall played in more games, but maybe that’s not such a good thing in hindsight.  Our young guys are getting a chance to step up and prove themselves.  I’m going to call this one a good move not based on Zaun being better, but that it has given our young guys a chance to play.

Signing Doug Davis and Randy Wolf
The Brewers definately needed some pitching, but it was not a year for the pitcher on the free agent market.  Of course Melvin holds the wild card for trades with Fielder in his back pocket, but it might be too early to play that one.  It’s no mystery that Doug Davis builds teams around hitting and doesn’t either know a lot about pitching, or doesn’t care about it.   As we have in times past (Francisco Cordero)  Melvin brought in a pitcher he has previously known, and Davis fits that mold perfectly.  Davis and Melvin go all the way back to Texas before the obvious match up of being in Milwaukee together for 4 years.  But there were a lot of other pitchers out there, most notably Jarrod Washburn, who is still out there!  A hometime guy who had said he wanted to go to Minnesota or Milwaukee, never got a chance in his hometown.  Maybe he was asking too much money, or maybe it wa something I don’t even know about.  Someone we did get was Randy Wolf.

I know the numbers don’t back me up, but I like Randy Wolf.  I like him a lot because he reminds me of a sort of anti-Jeff Suppan.  Follow me on this for a second:  Wolf- a lefty, Suppan- a right.  But that is just the obvious one.  Wolf is a hard working, blue collar kind of guy.  Suppan was on Young and the Restless.  But my favorite differance is ownership.  When Wolf pitches a bad game, he blame it on HIMSELF and talks about how he needs to do better, even when he wins!   He’s a Milwaukee kind of guy and he works hard to gain respect.  Suppan on the other hand makes up excuse after excuse.  This was a quote Suppan had last Sunday after he blew it against the Mets.

“”Basically it was a matter of execution. I was just up in the zone.
That first inning I was trying to get a ground ball, got it, but it’s
up the middle (on Castillo’s hit). With the home run (by Pagan), it was
a changeup, first pitch, but it was just middle, middle.”

It was just middle, middle?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!  JUST?!?!?!?!?!  That means it’s a terrible pitch Jeff!  Seriously, sometimes I feel like I am taking crazy pills!

Anyways, I would say that the Wolf pick was good and the Davis pick marginal at best.  I still think we should go after Washburn.

Not going after Cameron, or Looper
The casual fan looks at Looper stats and says wow!  He won the most games of any pitcher for the Brewers in 2009.  He MUST be good.  And the rest of us would say, have you ever watched a game?  It’s surprising that Looper wasn’t on the DL with neck inflammation after turning his head so many times to watch the ball leaving the ball park.  The guy wasn’t that good, gave up a league leading amount of homeruns, but got crazy run support.  Not going after Looper was a good move. 

Time will tell if Gomez is the centerfielder of the future.  He seems to be a little too streaky and injury prone, but we needed to get some kind of value for Hardy since Escobar was on the way up.  I think we got pretty fair value, and Gerut and Edmonds have filled in nicely when Gomez has been injured.  Having Cameron would of created a dead spot in our line up, but most importantly would of cost way too much to keep him. I consider this a great move.

Random Thought of the Week
I’m sick of hearing how the one hitter thrown by Galarraga should be overturned and it should go in the record books as a no-no.  That’s why you play the game and that’s why we have umpires.  What about all the times that umpires call the guy out at first after a super sweet play in the hole by the short stop even though he was obviously safe?  Better yet, what about 2 years ago when C.C. Sabathia threw a one hitter against the Pirates, even though the one hit came on a comebacker that C.C. dropped and should have been an error?  Stuff like this happens all the time, and that’s the beauty of baseball-the human element.  Unlike NFL and their replay, baseball is in the moment, under the lights, with millions watching.  And you only get one chance to make the call.