Ha, good topic, I just wrote some stuff about the Brewers rebuild, I tweaked as I missed some updated stuff (don't subscribe to BP so haven't read). People think rebuilds are quick, easy, and/or youth only but they aren't:

OK, lets hit the Brew crew next. They have been losing for 14 straight years now, from 1993-2006. They struggled with staying around .500 for about 8 years before doing what I advocate for a quick rebuild: sink to the bottom. From 2001-2004, they lost 94 games 3 years, 106 one year. That gets you a lot of high draft picks.

Let's go over their draft results, from 1997 as that is the year Sabean took over the Giants, plus I'll throw in Baseball America's top 10 prospects:

1997: No current member of Brewers drafted, nor any good player drafted period (0 out of 50).

1998: Bill Hall, he's a round 6. Everyone else pretty much sucked (1 out of 50).

1999: Ben Sheets, #1, 10th overall (1 out of 49).

2000: Corey Hart, 11th round (1 out of 50).

2001: J.J. Hardy, 2nd round, 56 overall (1 out of 50 and prospects)

2002: Prince Fielder, 1st round, 7th overall; Dana Eveland 16th round, has MLB experience (1 out of 50 plus prospects)

2003: Rickie Weeks, 1st round, 2nd overall; Tony Gwynn, 2nd round, 39th overall, #17 BA but made MLB; (1 out of 50 plus prospects)

2004: Mark Rogers, 1st round, 5th overall, #5 BA; Yovani Gallardo, 2nd round, 46th overall, #1 BA; Lorenzo Cain, DFA 17th round, #6 BA; (1 out of 50 plus prospects)

2005: Ryan Braun, 1st round, 5th overall, #2 BA; Will Inman, 3rd round, 85th overall, #3 BA; Mat Gamel, 4th Round, #10 BA; Steve Hammond, 6th round, #7 BA (1 out of 50 plus prospects)

2006: Jeremy Jeffress, 1st round, 16th overall, #4 BA; Cole Gillespie, 3rd Round, 92nd overall #8 BA (0 out of 50 plus prospects)

Thus, over a 10 year period, the Brewers found 8 players who are currently on their roster. The Giants have 9 players. Clearly, they have much better players on the whole, but 2 of them were Top 5 overall picks (Giants had none), 2 more of them are top 10 picks overall (Giants had 2 during that time) and 2 were from the 2nd Round.

The Brewers were 67% on their Top 5 picks (Rogers still developing so could be 100%), 100% on their 6-10th picks overall, 0% (out of 6) on picks in the 11-19 overall range. They are 4 out of 10 for their first round draft picks, but if you use more comparable picks with the Giants (10th to 30th), they are 1 out of 6 or 17%. The Giants have selected Cain, Lowry, and Lincecum with their 10-30 picks.

So, the winning Brewers of today have been slowly rebuilt via the draft (and trades) over a 10 year period. Thus, by selecting the Brewers as your example of a good rebuild, you are advocating that the Giants suck for 10+ years, get a lot of draft picks high, so that you can be happy with a team rebuilt the right way.

By the way, they overpaid an 32 year old Jeff Suppan to be a starter on their team. Apparently they could not develop enough young starting pitchers to fill their rotation. They are also forced to use mediocrities (this year)like Dave Bush (4.84 ERA), Capuano (5.16 ERA), and Claudio Vargas (4.47 ERA) as starters, plus Sheets is no good to them on the DL. Their pitching is so bad that they were forced to resort to using Elmer Dessens on their staff.

And of course, in rebuilds, you don't sign pitchers who are old and past their primes, you have to use young prospects only, vets are verboten!

Also, by the way, they kept Geoff Jenkins and Tony Graffanino plus re-signed Craig Counsell, guys who, under the rebuild theory, should have been traded away already for prospects, or better, not re-signed in the first place with Counsell. Damian Miller too.

Addendum: so, over 10 years, almost 500 draft picks by the Brewers, they have developed 8 players who are on their roster (nobody has been traded who is on another MLB roster). That is 1.6% success rate, and that is with the great picks they got early in the first round four times.

Drafting is not the holy grail of rebuilding, it can be nasty, slow, frustrating, much like adding rings on a tree. The Brewers didn't add more than one player a year, to their roster, based on results thus far. If they are rebuilding at that rate, they will fill out a roster in 25 years, by which time the first ones will have retired already and they would have had to trade for young prospects to try to keep the talent level going.

Of course, some of the players they have selected in 2004 through 2006 are probably still valid prospects, but obviously that is yet to be seen.

Rebuilding is not the easy turnaround that people think they are, it normally take many years of losses, particularly with out and out stinkers, they are always done with some vets on the roster, some (a lot in some cases, like Atlanta) free agent signings, and the rebuild will have mistakes made.

I think the Tigers are the closest model to how we are progressing, until last year, the only position prospect they had is Brandon Inge and he's very Pedro Feliz like in his stats. They are focused on their pitching, first Bonderman, now Verlander, and Miller appears to be next, and they obviously hope that Porcello, their 2007 1st round pick, will be the 4th starter eventually.

And they have a pitcher's park, unlike our park which has been neutral the past few years but is still viewed as a pitcher's park because of the way it suppresses HR hitting for both right-handers and left-handers.

And they took many many more years of losing than we did to reach their current state, they have basically been struggling since 1989, for 17 years, before winning. The turnaround was shorter, once Dombrowski took over, but still, that's the danger of switching, you don't know what you are getting. Just because someone is a sabermetric-prone GM does not mean that he has the people skills that go into being a GM.

Meanwhile, 3 years of losing into this rebuilding, the Giants have their pitching staff pretty much filled with internally developed pitchers and a few position bench players, Frandsen and Lewis who appear headed for a starting position hopefully next year.

To answer ELM's question about the perks in many superstar contracts, I think it's just a prestige thing that, likely, the agents insist on. Kevin Brown's agent probably still crows that he not only got him 15+M a year, but 12 flights on the owners private jet to go visit his family. It's ridiculous and excessive, but hey, that's major league baseball contracts in general.

OGC makes some excellent points. Anyone who skimmed over his rather lengthy comment, please go back and read it.

I thought, too, this was very informative and thorough. In response, I did a little roster construction study, which I posted at McC Chrons (hope it doesn't violate etiquette to repost here). Here it is:
Since there is so much talk about roster construction and how poor ours is, I thought I would do a small comparison.
My methodology (which would make my stats instructors cringe): I compared the Giants to three teams we are often compared to, Braves, Padres, Tigers. I also looked at Boston as they have MLBs best record and are largely (are they not?) sabermetrically operated. It is not a perfect comparison as injuries, demotions, DL visits all confuse what the roster is for a given team. I tried to look at primary players, pitchers with over 20 IP, for example. So, there is a variation in the 'size' of rosters, which range from 23 to 26.
I was looking for comparisons as to ages (+ or - 30) and home grown vs acquired through trades/FAs. The one thing I would have liked to do differently would be to break the ages off at 32 rather than 30, but I didn't want to do the entire study over.
The study makes no attempt to grade players or to compare teams as to who has the most valuable, etc.
Here are the results:

team # players -30 # players 30 or +
Giants 12 12
Detroit 9 14
SD 8 13
Atl 11 12
Boston 11 15

team # drafted/home grown # traded/FAs
Giants 11 14
Detroit 6 17
SD 4 17
Atl 13 10
Boston 6 20

Nice analysis on both parts.

Ogc, I think the best way to build through the draft is to get 4-5 top 5 picks. The picks should be primarily position players, maybe one of them is a pitcher. Then the rest of the team needs to be obtained through free agency. Finding key free agents is just as important as drafting solid talent. We should also look to invest more of our money into player development, so that we are sure we are getting every ounce out of each prospect.

We have already shown a knack for drafting pitching in the 10-30 range, so we should focus our future drafts accordingly. Cain, Lincecum, Lowry, Sanchez are all solid picks. Now over the next few years we need to suck really bad (not going to be hard) and get top 5 picks. We can simultaneously clear up cap space and prepare ourselves to make free agency splashes while continuing to develop our youth. Hopefully in a few years we will have a team that is both young and talented. If we have done everything right we will suck for 3 years but we will have young talent brewing in the minors. Then we build a team through free agency and supplement the developed talent when it is ready.

To suck for the next 3 years won't be hard. Just play the AAA kids and see who can hack it. You never know, maybe one of them will turn out to be more than just a backup/bench player. Put our whole existing minor league position prospects on the fast track to the bigs. Try to obtain extra draft picks/youth by trading the existing veterans.

5 years from now Zito, Cain, Lowry, Lincecum, Sanchez will be a nasty and experienced starting pitching staff. Hopefully Villalona and Noonan are our 1B and SS respectively. Then there will be 2-3 other position players we developed that we drafted over the next couple years. Villalona, Noonan, and the other young kids will still ve cheap relative to their contributions. The rest of the budget is tied up in 4-5 savvy veterans.

Might suck looking that far down the line but at least I have the Niners to hold me over...

BawLa, I totally agree that sucking hard and getting top draft picks is normally a great way to go, but that's when you are pretty much starting from nothing. If you do that now, then you just wasted 4-5 years of Lowry, Cain and Lincecum's cheap controlled years with us.

Now is the time to make hay. Most of our salaries are coming off the books over the next two years. More if we trade away longer contracts. The only year I would try for a top 5 would be this year, since it is pretty dead anyway, and maybe next year.

Right now, we would have the 5th pick, though we also have to games to catch up with the Pirates. Plus there are three teams "threatening" to "catch" up with us, ChiSox, KC, and Texas, they are not that far away from us. They are one good losing streak of passing us up.

The good news there, if you want this to happen, is that because of the need to make up the rainouts in Pittsburgh, they will have two horrendous stretches where they play a game on like 20-30 consecutive days. And with Bonds legs ailing, there will then be more games where he won't be playing.

Too bad the Orioles screwed the Giants by picking Wieters, most mock drafts had him falling to the Giants and there would be our future C of the near future, plus he's a good hitter to boot. But if we can get a good top 5 pick this year, maybe we can get our hands on the best college hitter of 2008 draft.

Hmm, seeing how close we are to a Top 5 pick (and we are not that far from the #1, just 2.5 games), I think this means we need to play Frandsen at 3B regularly and make Feliz and Aurilia the utility guys (that might improve the offense right there, Feliz has been stinko there, he's been on the Marvin Benard retirement tour this season, he probably has his retirement all planned out).

Aurilia and Klesko platoon at 1B, or better, DFA Feliz or maybe there's a team who wants a utility guy with power, we give them all cash and they give us a low prospect in return, as I doubt we would get a draft pick for him when he free agents. Then bring up Niekro to platoon with Klesko at 1B.

Then explain to Winn that we are blowing this year and platoon him and Roberts in CF, and play Lewis in RF regularly, though Winn might play in RF sometimes when there's a tough LHP. Plus Winn could play LF the days Bonds take off. Hmm, both has been hot this month, maybe we should just give Bonds more rest... (but not so much that he doesn't pass Aaron, we don't want a Bonds expensive redux next season).

Probably should look to trade Sweeney to contender who need LH bat off bench and great PH, and use Ortmeier up here. Schierholtz should play regularly so I would bring him up in September after AAA season is over and fit him into rotation at that point, perhaps if Lewis is struggling, Nate then gets all the starts in RF.

I think we keep Klesko for next season (or to get a good draft pick for, if possible, probably value is hurt by not playing at all last season) unless we get a good prospect for him in trade. If we can do that, I think we should just bring up Ishikawa, he did OK in his short run last year, just give him more time in the majors, where they can judge him in person and maybe give him some hitting tips to get him over his big K-hump. He's been hot in San Jose after his demotion.

OGC,

I am not in favor of re-signing Klesko under any circumstances. It is my opinion that Scheirholtz and Ortmeier should both learn to play 1B and I would not at all mind them learning this on the fly at the major league level this year as soon as we can dump both Klesko and Sweeney and the sooner the better.

OGC,

I also think there is zero chance that Klesko will qualify for any draft compensation. Ryan just has not (and at this point can not) play enough to qualify as a top 20% (type A) or top 40% (type B) 1B/OF/DH.

ogc -- looking over that list of Brewers' draftees, it seems to me that they've done some pretty great drafting. Sheets was a great pick at #10, as was Fielder at #7; they're both among the very best players taken in their respective drafts.

Maybe more important: Hall, Hart, and Hardy are near-All-Star caliber players, and they were all picked up after the first round. That's pretty unusual, right? Gallardo was a find, too.

Thanks rainman, thought that might be so, given he missed all of last year, but I wasn't sure how they calculated everything, if playing time mattered that much. I thought that one complaint about the rating system was that rate stats were valued over playing time.

If there's anyone who should learn 1B, it should be EME.

I would be OK with Nate or Dan learning 1B - Jack Hiatt was interviewed by MiLB one pre-season and said that all OF prospects should learn how to play 1B to add to flexibility, but I've seen no such flex for any of the OF - just to get them ABs, as long as it was understood they are OFs. 1B will probably end up being our dumping ground for EME and I still have hope for him, despite his struggles this year and the constant injuries.

I think a team needs to balance playing youngsters against fielding a competitive team. Do you really think Cain can take another year of 3-12 without his head imploding?

And it is not like either Schierholtz or Ortmeier is killing AAA. They have nice 800 OPS in the strongly skewed hitters league that is the PCL. There is question marks for both of them.

Assuming we don't resign Bonds (and you never know, "Say Hey, 3000!"), then we can let Lewis, Schierholtz, and Ortmeier fight for playing time in LF plus Ortmeier can get time in CF when there is a lefthanded opposing pitcher, plus Winn isn't hitting the stuffing out of the ball consistently, so maybe he gets to sit more when he's cold.

Also, I saw interesting info on Winn, can't remember where (here? :^), that his no-trade clause is limited, and that one of these seasons, he will have limited no-trade options, meaning it would be easier to trade him.

I know most have given up on Niekro, but I still think there's hope for him. But this latest injury, ugh, really testing me. But he should be back soon, maybe he could platoon with Klesko, make 1B really productive offensively

Say, anyone see how good Ivan Ochoa is? He was doing OK at AAA until his injury and he's only 24. He's supposedly good defensively already, any chance he could play SS for us next season in place of Vizquel? I was reading through rumors today and someone noted that the SS free agent market is pretty barren this upcoming off-season, which would suggest resigning Vizquel to a $1M contract, but if we are going young, how about Ochoa? Anybody see him play in AAA?

>>>I also think there is zero chance that Klesko will qualify for any draft compensation.

rainman, can you tell us what the qualification points are? Is there a formula?

I too am paralyzed with hilarity over contract perks. Surely the team reports them as compensation to the IRS, in which case it is very, very silly. Don't players still get meal money too? That's goofy for these $20M men.

Glad to see others ready to ship out Mr. Klucko. If he's not guaranteed to bring a draft pick, sayonara (maybe he can play in Japan).

BB

OGC - In my opinion, Shierholtz is far beyond Ortmeier in the pecking order. Nate was injured when we called up Dan and Freddie, and it just so happened that both of them started doing OK. I really like your idea of having Nate learn 1B. He has decent size and mobility and 1B is obviously one of our many areas of concern. Start teaching Nate 1B, and have him put on like 15-20 lbs. of muscle on that frame, see if he can hone in a power stroke. Since being sent back down to AAA, Nate is slugging .611 so maybe he is already on his way. I think at some point this year he is going to find his way back up - he just won't get much by continuously owning AAA pitchers.

BawLA, Schierholtz is far beyond Ortmeier, yes, that's why I want him playing regularly in AAA for the rest of the season instead of sitting on the bench up there. He is still a platoon type of hitter, we need him to get better against LHP and he won't do that on the bench.

Then once the season is over, we give him semi-regular work in September call ups.

Evan, yes, the Brewers have done excellent drafting, their success rate is much higher than expected for their top picks, though that is counteracted by their poor success rate in the rest of the first round. But big hits make up for that a lot. And with 2 of 10 in the second round, they are above average there as well.

But the key question here is, are you willing to wait 9 years for a team to put together their lineup, which is how long it has taken the Brewers, based on their current roster (12 years if you include Jenkins)? Plus who knows how many more years to fill out their pitching staff, because they aren't going to go far in the playoffs with such a lame rotation and continually injured Sheets. I'm not that patient.

Melvin took over after the 2002 season, so he has quickly turned things around and made great picks, but it is yet to be seen whether he is any better than his predecessor in selecting draft picks, as thus far there has only been 1 per year contributing to the roster. But it takes 4-6 years for guys to percolate sometimes, so his recent drafts still have potential, as shown by the number of Top 10 prospects from recent years.

About Schierholtz, one thing that I've always wondered is why don't teams hire a good retired LHP to travel with the team; just pay him a coach's salary or something. His job would be to pitch spirited batting practice with all their left-handed hitters (and I guess the same could be done with RHP, but most players face enough in game situations) in order to give him more practice against LHP.

Wouldn't it make sense in particular to the Giants, Barry Bonds has his own personal LHP to pitch to him so he can stay sharp and get better. Why not do that for all their lefthanded hitter?

ELM,

It is an Elias Sports Bureau formula that seems to be kept secret (perhaps by the CBA) for some crazy reason. I base my view on Klesko's chances on my personal observations of who has been type A or type B in the past, how much they played, and how well they played.

Yeah, it has been kept secret and I think it probably relates to the fear that if the formula comes out, then players will focus solely on boosting that formula, which requires some selfishness on their part, instead of focusing on being a team player.

Not that players don't already do that, but if the formula was released, you know that they will do that and, maybe, conveniently miss the bunt or hit to the right side sign and swing away instead.

Just my guess.