1993 Brewers Rebuild

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In 1993, the Milwaukee Brewers started a long, dark losing period. Their next season with a winning record wouldn't come until 2007. My goal with this simulation is to simply get back above .500 in less than the 15 years it took the actual Brew Crew.



I've actually played all the way through 2000 already, keeping a log of transactions/etc. along the way. Some of my friends have been amused by the story thus far, so I thought I would share it here.


We begin our story with the transactions of the preseason and spring training of 1993. The Brewers roster is filled with a combination of aging, expensive veterans and the talent that allowed them to win 92 games the year before and the farm system is devoid of any serious talent beyond 3B Jeff Cirillo (IRL one of my favorite Brewers of all time) and 2B Mark Loretta.

• The Brewers trade SS Dickie Thon (retaining 25% of his contract) and 3B Eddie Williams to the Dodgers for OF Henry L Rodriguez, RP Antonio Osuna, RP Felix Rodriguez, RP Javier De La Hoya and 2B Jose Munoz.
• SP Scott Karl (the #80 prospect in baseball) is shipped to the Yankees for prospects lower in the minors - SP Mike DeJean, RP Ramiro Mendoza and RP Mariano Rivera (!!?!!).
• SP Mike Boddicker is lost for the season w/bone chips in his elbow.

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· The Brewers start the season a surprising 9-9 behind better than expected pitching. However they hit the skids shortly thereafter, and on 5/17 they are 15-21, 6^th place in the AL East.

• At this point, John Jaha has 9 dingers, and Dave Nilsson is hitting .331.
• Mark Kiefer has been a nice surprise taking the 5th spot in the rotation. He’s 2-2 with a 3.22 ERA in 5 starts.

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July 1993 becomes the month of trading for people who in real life ended up becoming closers for their respective teams. It will be interesting to see how these players turn out coming up through the Brewers farm system.


7/6

• Brewers trade C Tom Lampkin and 3B Eddy Diaz to Montreal for SP Kirk Rueter and RP Joey Eischen.

7/9

• Brewers trade OF Matt Mieske and OF Todd Dunn to the Red Sox for 3B Luis Ortiz and SP Jeff Suppan.

All Star Break

• Brewers come into the break at 38-51, 15 GB of the Yankees and 1 1/2 games out of the AL East cellar.
• Two Brewers make the All-Star team C Dave Nilsson (voted by fans) and 3B BJ Surhoff
• SS Danny Klassen named MVP of the California League all-star game.
• BJ Surhoff is batting .378. Greg Vaughn has 20 HR. No pitchers are especially good.

7/27

• Brewers trade C Brian Hostetler to the Orioles for RP Armando Benitez

7/30

• Brewers trade RP Mike Fetters to the Angels for RP Troy Percival, RP Russ Springer and C Jorge Fabregas.

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The Brewers stunk most of the rest of this season. They finish 71-91, 5th in the AL East, 25 GB of the Yankees. The Braves beat the Yankees 4-3 in the World Series.


A few Brewers farmhands win awards:

• Carlos Almanzar named AZL Reliever of the Year.
• Bobby Rector named AZL Pitcher of the Year.
• Javier de la Hoya (picked up from the Dodgers in our first trade of the simulation) named Texas League (AA) Pitcher of the Year.
• Jackie Nickell named American Association (AAA) Reliever of the Year

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The rebuild really starts in earnest this spring. Brewers icon Robin Yount retires after a bland season in center field where he hit .267 with 26 doubles and 12 homers. Mike Boddicker also retires after missing the entire 1993 season with the injury he suffered in spring training.


The pitching staff needs a makeover, the rotation has a few decent pieces:

• 25 year old Cal Eldred (8-15, 5.26 ERA/4.29 FIP 3.2 WAR)
• 26 y/o innings eater Jaime Navarro (12-10, 4.61 ERA/4.20 FIP, 3.9 WAR).
• 30 y/o Bill Wegman (10-16, 4.90 ERA/4.36 FIP, 3.0 WAR)

However the bullpen is a mess. No reliever posted more than 1 WAR and our closer in 36 year old Jesse Orosco who saved 24 games but had an ERA of almost 6.


Offensively there are some bright spots, but aside from these three players, almost every spot on the diamond could use a major upgrade.

• Greg Vaughn hit 30 dingers in '93 with a 2.3 WAR.
• Dave Nilsson has a stranglehold on the catcher position, posting a 3.7 WAR season while hitting .296 with 32 2B and 17 HR.
• 3B BJ Surhoff had a 4.1 WAR season, batting .343!

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The wheeling and dealing started with a leadership change in the dugout. For reasons unknown to me, the Twins fired manager Tom Kelly. I immediately swooped in and signed him, dumping Phil Garner. (In the real world Garner presided over the Brewers through the 1999 season.)

Over the hill vets OF Tom Brunansky and P Teddy Higuera left as free agents. A much-beloved figure with the Brewers, Higuera played his final season with the organization at AAA New Orleans trying to recapture the form that made him one of the team's best pitchers from 1985-1990.

To shore up the rotation, the Brewers backed up a truckload of money to free agent pitchers Randy Johnson (7 yrs/$40.1 million) and David Wells (3 yrs/$2.1 million. I'm unreasonably excited about the prospect of the Big Unit suiting up for the Brewers.

A couple of other minor transactions went down:

• Traded C Joe Kmak to Minnesota for RP Eddie Guardado
• Signed free agent swiss army knife Lloyd McClendon to a one year contract. He'll become our backup catcher and play all over the diamond other days.

The Rule V draft was very kind to the Crew. We managed to pick up OF Garret Anderson and 1B Roberto Petagine, both of whom will likely play quite a bit this season.

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On Opening Day the Brewers fix their logjam in the outfield by sending Kevin Reimer to the Padres for P Bruce Hurst.

Jeff Cirillo has a great spring and is installed as the starter at 3B.

4/9/94

• Bill Wegman wins his first start of the year, but tears his rotator cuff and is lost for the year. This makes the second year in a row where a starter suffers a terrible injury at the beginning of the season.
• Brewers are 3-1, 1st place in the AL Central.

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5/1

• Brewers are 14-9, 2nd in the AL Central, ½ GB of the Indians.
• Pat Listach comes off the 15 day DL.
• Jeff Cirillo named AL Rookie of the Month, hitting .360 w. 3 dingers and 15 RBI.

5/8

• Kirk Reuter hits the DL for 2-3 months with Elbow Inflammation.
• Brewers are 18-11, still ½ game behind the Indians.

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In digging through my notes, it occurs to me I should take a step back and explain the Reimer trade. He was a perfectly average player, but IIRC, he could only play LF, and there were plenty of other average players available for cheaper. More importantly, from his ratings, Troy O'Leary seemed ready to be playing every day. Picking up Hurst was basically trying to get anything at all for spare parts. In retrospect I should have been shopping him all offseason.



After dumping Reimer, the Brew Crew ended up with an everyday outfield of O'Leary, Greg Vaughn and Darryl Hamilton. Not too bad.


I also forgot to mention that infielder Bill Doran retired after the 1993 season, freeing up another million dollars to shovel at free agents.


At this point, the primary lineup for the Brewers was:


C Dave Nilsson
1B John Jaha
2B Jeff Cirillo
SS Jose Valentin
3B Bill Spiers
OF Troy O'Leary
OF Darryl Hamilton
OF Greg Vaughn
DH Roberto Petagine
Garret Anderson as supersub across all three OF spots.


SP Randy Johnson
SP David Wells
SP Cal Eldred
SP Jaime Navarro
SP Kirk Rueter (well, until the injury)
RP Tim Davis
RP Doug Henry
RP Eddie Guardado
RP Graeme Lloyd
RP Jackie Nickell
RP Bruce Hurst
CL Jesse Orosco

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6/6

• Brewers are 30-24, 3 GB Cleveland., 3rd place in the AL Central.
• Jesse Orosco named AL pitcher of the month, collecting 8 saves w/a 0.71 ERA.
• Randy Johnson pitches a no-hitter against the A’s.

6/15

• Brewers are 34-29, 3 ½ GB, 3rd place
• Brewers use their first round draft pick to select Hideo Nomo. He immediately gets sent to AAA for a few tuneup starts before getting promoted to the active roster.

6/20

• Brewers release Bruce Hurst after he refuses to go to the minors. At the time he was 1-3 with a 7.53 ERA and a FIP not much lower than that. So much for getting something for Reimer.

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7/1

• Brewers are 45-32, 1st in the AL Central, ½ game ahead of the Indians. This shocks me to no end.
• Jeff Cirillo named AL Rookie of the Month, hitting .333 w/5 dingers
• Brewers minor league system is now ranked 3rd in baseball, largely due to Nomo being ranked #10 and Cirillo at #15. This should drop next year as both are in the majors.

7/12 – All Star Break

• D. Nilsson, J. Cirillo, R. Johnson and J. Orosco voted to the all-star team.
• Brewers are 49-37, 2 GB of the White Sox, 3rd in the AL Central.
• The Brewers finally run out of patience with P Ricky Bones, shipping him to the Expos for 2B Brian Duva, RP Gabe White and SP Matt Drews.

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10/3

• The Brewers end the year 93-69, 5 GB, third in the AL Central. Their record would have won any other division in the American League. I guess getting the team back over .500 was easier than I thought. The next question is how long it will take to get back into the playoffs.
• Dodgers beat the Indians 4-1 in the World Series.

Some General Notes on the Season

• Jamie Navarro had the best year of his career, real or fictional: 18-6, 3.30 ERA. 5.3 WAR. His ERA was 3rd in the AL.
• Roberto Petagine also had a year better than any season he actually had in the bigs: .291 BA, 119 OPS+, 27 2B, 21 HR 2.2 WAR. It's really interesting to see the deviations in performance in these sims.
• The team's best offensive player was Dave Nilsson: .352 BA, 144 OPS+, 39 2B, 23 HR, 6.1 WAR. His BA was 3rd in the AL. He just missed eclipsing Paul Molitor's team record of batting .353 for a season.
• Greg Vaughn hit 43 homers.
• Randy Johnson led the AL in ERA (3.19) and K (279)

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The up and coming Brewers took home some serious hardware in 1994.

Randy Johnson won the AL Cy Young, becoming the third player to do so after Rollie Fingers in 1981 and Pete Vuckovich in 1982.. Jaime Navarro actually placed 4th in the voting.

Jeff Cirillo won the AL Rookie of the Year, becoming the second Brewer to take home the honor. The other was Pat Listach in 1992. Hopefully he doesn't have the same precipitous fall as Listach...

In a sign of potential big things to come, the Brewers actually end up with 4 of the top 5 players in Rookie of the Year voting.

• Cirillo (winner)
• Roberto Petagine (2nd)
• Troy O’Leary (3rd)
• Hideo Nomo (5th)

Rounding out the major league awards, Dave Nilsson won the Silver Slugger at Catcher.

Minor League Roundup

• Steve Watson named American Association (AAA) Manager of the Year.
• Jeff Suppan named California League (A+) Pitcher of the Year. 16-12, 3.08 ERA, 213K in 227.2 IP
• Antonio Osuna named Midwest League (A) reliever of the year.

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Team batting and pitching.

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Despite winning 90+ games, the Brewers missed the playoffs. Looking at the stats from 1994, it struck me just how badly I misused BJ Surhoff and his prolific bat. He has some positional flexibility (C/3B/OF) so there's got to be a way to get him into the lineup.

A couple of other things stuck out to me as I contemplated strategy:

• Jesse Orosco is old. I mean really old (37). In real life he pitched into his mid-forties, but how much risk do I want to take and how much money do I want to commit to someone at his age, who put up a fairly aberrant season in terms of BABIP and BB/9? He seemed pretty much due for a regression and fan favorite or not, an upgrade at closer seemed needed.
• The farm system kids bound for the bullpen cannot get here soon enough. The only reliever with a WAR over 0.5 was Orosco. Guh.
• The Rule V draft could not have gone better for me. Garret Anderson and Roberto Petagine are definitely pieces for the future.
• Troy O'Leary was fantastic as a rookie.
• More starting pitching was needed. Lucking into Hideo Nomo in the draft is a blessing, but Jaime Navarro is never going to have another season like that and Cal Eldred is no world-beater. Also although David Wells was 15-7, his 6.02 ERA was pretty ghastly.

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Transactions leading up to the 1995 season include:

• Letting free agents Jesse Orosco and Lloyd McClendon walk.
• Signing extensions with Cal Eldred (3 yrs/$2.3 million) and Darryl Hamilton (2 yrs/$3.4 million)
• Trading knuckleballer Steve Sparks to Boston for OF Joe Vitiello and P Rich Garces

That said, the big splashes for the second year in a row came from signing some big name free agent pitchers. To plug the closer-shaped hole in the bullpen, the Brewers sign John Wetteland (3 yrs/$9 million). To further bolster the rotation, Curt Schilling (4 yrs/$26.3 million) is brought in.



A top three of Randy Johnson, Hideo Nomo and Curt Schilling in the rotation is something I could only have dreamed of as a Brewers fan in the 90's. I love this game.

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Not surprisingly, the Brewers farm system slips to #14 after graduating so many high-level prospects. #1 prospect in the system is now AAA 2B Mark Loretta.

One player not starting the season with the club? Starting SS Jose Valentin. Valentin injured his back 3/25 and won’t return until the third week of the season.

To try to make better use of the folks on the roster, I made some adjustments to the everyday lineup.

• Garret Anderson's advanced bat and strong defense need a place in the outfield. To make room, Greg Vaughn gets moved into the DH slot.
• I can no longer stomach John Jaha's feast or famine approach at the plate. I want a higher OPS for the team and he's not helping. As such he grabs a spot on the bench and Roberto Petagine gets regular starts at 1B.
• Since he's not going to play in the outfield, and he's certainly not going to supplant Dave Nilsson at catcher, BJ Surhoff becomes the starting 3B. Bill Spiers, last year's starter at 3B will slide over to start at SS while Valentin is on the mend and play supersub across the infield after that.

On the pitching side of things I (perhaps foolishly) decide that the future is now and start calling up promising kids. What's the point of dumping all this money into the rotation if the bullpen is going to give up all those leads? Tory Percival and Mariano Rivera embark on their rookie seasons

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4/12/95

Brewers are 5-3, tied with the Royals for 1st in the AL Central.

Brewers trade P Bill Wegman to the Expos for SP Chris Nabholz after Wegman refuses to go to AAA to work his way back from his major injury of 1994.

In all honesty, I kind of screwed this up. I thought after DFA'ing him I would be able to just send him down but he refused. Fearing his arm might be shot (and knowing he was on the wrong side of 30) I decided to get what I could for him.

4/17

The training staff relays that Valentin will need another week on the DL.
Brewers are 7-5, ½ Game ahead of both the Royals and the Indians.

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Apparently nothing interesting happened in May... I have no notes from that month

6/12

• Brewers 34-28, 2nd in the AL Central, 1 GB of the Indians.
• The bullpen has been disappointing. Part of the problem – new closer John Wetteland’s horrible streak of luck. His BABIP against is nearly .380. Cal Eldred was sent to the minors as well.
• Darryl Hamilton has his 20-game hitting streak end today.

6/15

It's time for the draft. Having given up their 1st round selection to pick up Curt Schilling, the Brewers take CF Alex Escobar with their top selection (in the 2nd round.)

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7/10 – All Star Break

• Brewers 50-38, 2nd in AL Central, 5 ½ GB Chicago.
• Dave Nilsson, Randy Johnson, Hideo Nomo, Curt Schilling and John Wetteland all voted to the All-Star Game.
• Brewers trade John Jaha, RP Kirk Rueter and SP Matt Beaumont to Philadelphia for minor league OF Vladimir Guerrero. (I love this trade. As much as I hate to give up on Rueter, he just doesn't seem to be able to make it in the rotation.)