By all accounts, 2015 has been an unmitigated failure for the Milwaukee Brewers. With the bitter memory of their September collapse last year fresh on the minds of fans, the Brewers face-planted out the gates to a 5-18 start to the season that immediately quelled any hope of postseason contention this season.
Manager Ron Roenicke was axed; general manager Doug Melvin announced his intention to step down at the end of the year; Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza pitched so poorly that fans started longing for the days of Jeff Suppan and Dave Bush. The Brewers had plunged into the abyss, and you’d have been hard-pressed to find a fan with much optimism about the future.
But with the announcement of the hiring of David Stearns as its new general manager, owner Mark Attanasio has shown a clear new direction for the franchise, one that should give fans hope of a brighter future.
At 30 years old, Stearns, who has served as the Houston Astros’ assistant general manager since 2012, will be the youngest GM in the MLB and is even younger than Ryan Braun. While some may see his youth as a drawback, some of baseball’s best general managers were around Stearns’ age when they got their start. For example, current Chicago Cubs GM Theo Epstein was only 28 when the Boston Red Sox hired him back in 2002.
Hiring someone as young as Stearns, a 2007 Harvard graduate, isn’t unprecedented, and his combination of youth and background in analytics makes him the perfect fit for a franchise that’s perilously close to being a full-blown dumpster fire.
If skeptical Brewers fans want proof of Stearns’ capabilities, they need only to look at his tenure in Houston to be reassured that the team is in good hands.
Between 2011 and 2013, the Astros were the laughingstock of baseball. During those three years, they went 162-324 and finished each season with at least 106 losses. It was a brutal stretch of futility that puts the Brewers’ current struggles to shame, but GM Jeff Luhnow, Stearns and the rest of the Houston front office laid out a clear plan to reinvigorate the farm system and build a contender out of homegrown talent.
Not only were they successful in that endeavor, but they’ve done it faster than even the most optimistic Astros fan could’ve hoped. After posting a 70-92 record in 2014, Houston has taken the American League by storm this year and looks poised to return to the playoffs for the first time since its World Series appearance in 2005.
It’s been a remarkable turnaround for the Astros in a brief period of time, one that Stearns will look to replicate in Milwaukee.
The Brewers already put the wheels in motion on their upcoming rebuilding process by dealing Carlos Gómez, Mike Fiers and Gerardo Parra at the trade deadline in an attempt to shore up their farm system. There’s still plenty of work to be done in that regard, but Stearns will benefit from the luxury of getting to work with scouting director Ray Montgomery, who is highly regarded around the league and was thought by many to be a candidate for the general manager position.
Melvin will also be sticking around with the team in an advisory capacity, which could prove beneficial to Stearns as he makes the transition into his more significant role in Milwaukee.
The task that lies ahead for Stearns certainly isn’t an easy one, especially with the Brewers playing in the loaded NL Central, but the hiring of a smart, young general manager with an analytical background was a savvy move on Attanasio’s part and the one that’s reflective of the direction that many teams are going when hiring front office executives. That strategy has worked for franchises like the Astros and the Chicago Cubs, and following their example gives the Brewers their best chance at building a consistent postseason contender.
The 1982 team is still the golden standard by which all Brewers teams are measured. The fact that they’ve hired a GM who wasn’t even a glimmer in his father’s eye during that historic season is indicative of the paradigm shift that the franchise is undergoing in its quest for a brighter future.
Is David Stearns the right man to lead the franchise’s rebuild? Will the Brewers be a playoff contender in the near future? Share your thoughts with Zach at zach.rastall@dailycardinal.com.
