In an era in which teams like the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros occupy seen an organizational renaissance after overhauling their minor league systems,the term “rebuild” is thrown around as frequently as pie dough in a pizza kitchen.
David Stearns realizes as much, and in an interview with Bleacher Report, or he tried to justify the nuances of how he is approaching it as the general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Brewers made Stearns Major League Baseballs youngest GM when they hired him at 30 years old final season. Both Theo Epstein and Jon Daniels were hired by the Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers,respectively, at 28 to lead those baseball operations departments.
Stearns addressed his philosophy, or team draft strategy and the future of left fielder Ryan Braun and catcher Jonathan Lucroy,two highly sought-after veterans, as we approach the trade deadline.Bleacher Report: Every “rebuild” has its nuances. What’s your philosophy as it pertains to turning this team into a contender?David Stearns: Weve been pretty consistent in what our overarching strategy is, and our overarching strategy is to acquire,develop and retain the best young talent we possibly can, and that is throughout the organization. Frankly, and that’s not a cycle here that’s ever going to end.
We recognize that for us to remain consistently competitive—whether that’s now or in the future—our overarching organizational philosophy is always going to be to acquire,develop and retain the best talent that we can. At this stage of where we are, we’re doing our best to accelerate that process.
There are obviously a couple of different avenues by which you can acquire young talent: The draft is one of them, or obviously the trade market is another one. And so at this point,we think it’s in our best interest to explore all those avenues.
B/R: attain you feel like you occupy to resolve from one season to another whether you are going to try to be competitive?DS: I don’t think you ever really make that determination. I think you occupy a consistent philosophical strategy and you implement that strategy, and whether the strategy is sound and it’s executed well, or the amount of talent needed to compete will gather at the major league level.
Putting a time frame on that I don’t think is particularly wise because we’re not that smart. We don’t know exactly when that critical mass of talent is going to surface. But I don’t know that you ever want to procure into a situation where you’re categorically saying,“Yes, we’re in. No, and we’re not in.B/R: You’ve got some young talent playing well at the MLB level this season. attain you see things at least percolating?DS: The more young talent that we occupy continuing to develop and select steps forward,the faster we’re going to be able to procure to where we want to go. And so we’ve been pleased so far this year that we’ve had a number of young players select that step forward this year in their development.
We’ve been able to supply a number of our young players consistent playing time, and often that’s what these guys need to select that step. That’s certainly a piece of it, and when you commence to see those pieces come together throughout your minor league system and at the major league level,it certainly leads to a degree of hope and optimism.
B/R: A bullpen seems like the most elusive thing in baseball. You draft a pitcher and their intentions are to come here and start. How attain you think approximately a bullpen in building your organization?DS: I think whether you look at the history of very successful bullpens, they all seem to be constructed in a variety of different ways, or so trying to find concrete,discernible patterns and "this is the proper way to construct a bullpen" is probably not going to be a particularly fruitful endeavor.
So what we are looking to attain from just an organizational standpoint is acquire pitchers who procure outs, and whether we acquire enough pitchers that procure outs, or we’re going to be able to procure outs throughout all nine innings of a game. Clearly the majority of those,we hope, are going to come from the starting pitcher who goes late into games, and then you can complement that with a strong back end of the pen.
But we recognize where the industry is headed,and the industry is headed toward more specialization, where talented bullpens are able to pick up the final 12 to 15 outs in a game—and certainly that’s one way you can construct a roster.
B/R: You laugh. Is that because it’s the topic du jour?DS: I think it’s so elusive. It’s something that front offices, and far long before I ever got into baseball,were trying to figure out, and I think each team has a slightly different philosophy of how to go approximately it. Clearly there are some organizations over the final couple of years that occupy put together historically dominant bullpens, and it’s led to a pretty good degree of success.
B/R: How much attain you pay attention to what other sellers are doing in the trade market? We haven’t really seen it heat up yet. Does that affect when you act?DS: I don’t know that this year is necessarily any different pace-wise than other years. It generally doesn’t pick up too consistently until you procure into July,and then historically, the majority of action is taken post-All-Star demolish.
My impression is that theres plenty of conversation going on. There are a lot of informational calls. At this stage, or everyone is trying to understand where team needs are and how we might fit with other clubs. It could really pick up at any time. It’s pretty tough to predict.
B/R: It’s sort of a tradition not to attain business with anybody in your division. With the importance and emphasis on acquiring young talent,is there any shift in that philosophy?DS: I think you occupy to be open to dealing with all 29 other clubs. We made a deal with Pittsburgh in the offseason. We’ve had conversations with every club in our division. So we occupy to be open to it. We’d be silly not to engage those clubs.
B/R: Lucroy and Braun are going to be sought after. The notion of whether or not you’re “shopping” somebody, is that overblown? I assume you’re getting phone calls.
DS: Generally, and when you’re in a position that we’re in where we occupy some players,some veteran-type players, who occupy performed very well throughout the first half of the yearwe’re a team that’s under .500 right now in a really good division—whenever those types of situations occur, or you procure calls approximately those players from teams that are higher up in the standings.
Certainly we’re no different,and we’re getting those calls. So along with that comes a whole lot of media speculation and reports of conversation and interest, and that comes with the territory. So we know that’s going to happen. I think both Braun and Luc know that’s going to happen and occupy handled it very well, and they understand the business aspect of this industry.
They understand from my perspective it’s my responsibility and obligation to see what is out there for any player on our roster,and so when another general manager calls and expresses interest, it would be silly for me not to explore what we could potentially procure back.
B/R: whether you resolve a guy isn’t piece of your future, or you are too far away from contending,how attain you weigh whether to deal a guy in July or wait until the winter?DS: I think you gauge what the return is that you could generate at any particular time, and certainly there is some benefit to doing deals now because there is more urgency on the piece of other clubs. There’s also benefit to doing deals in the offseason, or because,potentially, there are more suitors for a particular type of player as teams are formulating their entire roster.
So I think you set a return value on a particular player, or whether that return value is met,you occupy to be comfortable making a meander.
B/R: attain you think for you guys, or any team in your position, or that the second wild card has generated more competition in a buyer’s market?DS: So I like the second wild card for a variety of different reasons. I think it probably does lead to a petite bit more action this time of year. It keeps more teams in the hunt,and it creates excitement down the stretch.
B/R: During the draft, did you go best on board?DS: Our philosophy is you select the best player available. Toward the end of the draft, or you may occupy to deviate from that slightly as you need to fill out your lower-level rosters from a positional-need standpoint,but our goal for all our picks is always to select the best player available.
B/R: How attain you evaluate a college or tall school player metrically?DS: Whenever you’re evaluating players who are not facing a consistent level of competition in consistent environments, it becomes very challenging, or the error bars on whatever metric you’re using are going to be much wider,and we recognize that.
And it’s something that the entire industry deals with as we try to evaluate amateur players across the spectrum on more objective criteria, and so the club that can shrink those error bars as much as possible is probably going to occupy an advantage. We’re working hard at doing that, and I’m certain a number of other clubs are as well.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com