The Milwaukee Brewers have been without a general manager for roughly a month after relieving Doug Melvin of his duties in August. After conducting a lengthy search, the franchise may be zeroing in on a top candidate.
Continue for updates.
Brewers Targeting Oakland A's Assistant General Manager
Thursday, Sept. 10
Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal reported on Thursday that the Brewers have Dan Kantrovitz at the top of their GM wish list. Kantrovitz has spent roughly a year in Oakland's front office after departing from the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom he served as the director of amateur scouting.
Dan Szymborski of ESPN.com views Kantrovitz as a strong option for Milwaukee to consider:
Somebody like Kantrovitz makes a lot of sense for the Brewers. While their minor league system is improving, Baseball Prospectus ranked it No. 26 to start the 2015 season. Baseball America was slightly higher on Milwaukee but still ranked it No. 19.
Back in April, BP's Matthew Trueblood wrote a good analysis of how Melvin essentially kicked the can down the road in an effort to keep the Brewers contending in the present. Prospects were leveraged for ready-made veterans at the trade deadline, and the team overspent on free agents in the offseason.
As the standings would attest to—Milwaukee is 61-78, fourth in the National League Central entering Thursday night—the franchise needs to blow up the roster and start from scratch.
In an interview with FanGraphs' David Laurila, Kantrovitz explained his beliefs on the MLB draft and its importance toward team-building:
We view the draft as a mechanism to save money. That may seem counter intuitive – it's a spending environment – but it's arguably the best bang for your buck in any area of procurement. The more you spend on the draft, assuming it's a disciplined approach, the more our club might be able to save down the road in the free-agent market.
That kind of attitude is what Milwaukee needs.
It might be inaccurate to call the Brewers a small-market team, but the best way for them to contend in the future is by identifying cost-controlled talent through the draft.
Of course, Milwaukee hasn't hired Kantrovitz yet, but if he at least represents the general direction in which ownership wants to go, the fanbase should feel good about the Brewers' long-term future.
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