Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club
Dear Doug Melvin: Please do not trade Carlos Gomez. Please.
Turns out Craig Counsell isn’t a miracle worker. But at least his Milwaukee Brewers are taking baby steps.
When the former Brewers player took over as the team’s new manager May 4, the Crew was 7-18 and the worst team in all of Major League Baseball.
With the Brewers playing their best ball of the season and recently completing their first home sweep, the team is 42-52 and no longer at the bottom of baseball’s barrel. (Thank you, Philadelphia, Miami and Colorado.)
Yet I still keep checking the standings every day to see how many wins this team needs in order to move out of last place in the National League Central (almost there) — not how many it needs to catch division-leading St. Louis.
I thought Counsell might be the spark to propel Milwaukee to the middle of the NL Central pack by last week’s All-Star break, which marked the halfway point of an incredibly trying season — one during which many fans stopped paying attention in April. After all, Counsell built rapport with many players as a former teammate and assistant to general manager Doug Melvin, and he played infield for two World Series championship teams.
Most of the chatter among Brewers fans in recent weeks has revolved around which players will be on the trading block as the July 31 trade deadline looms. Melvin won’t reveal much, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that other teams have asked about “a number of players” ranging “from our very young players to our veterans.”
Among the names often mentioned in trade-rumor talks are outfielders Carlos Gomez (age 29) and Gerardo Parra (28), as well as journeyman pitcher Kyle Lohse (36) and closer Francisco Rodriguez (33). Other player names tossed about include shortstop Jean Segura and catcher Jonathan Lucroy, but neither is likely to leave.
Regardless of who goes and who stays, it’s obvious that a rebuilding effort is needed. Milwaukee is famous for many things, including its status as an extremely patient baseball city. Attendance at Miller Park has averaged more than 30,000 per game every season since 2007. And despite this season’s debacle, the Brewers still are hovering just outside the top 10 nationally, averaging more than 32,000 fans per game. Such patience will wear thin, though, if efforts aren’t made to repair this ailing organization soon.
