MILWAUKEE BREWERS

Haudricourt: Patience is necessity for Brewers, fans in rebuilding project

Tom Haudricourt
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Brewers GM David Stearns and manager Craig Counsell talk before a spring training game on March 28, 2016.

The absolute toughest thing for fans to be is patient. There really is no close second.

This is certainly not breaking news, but it hit home again when I did my latest Brewers chat on jsonline.com. The season was only three weeks old but many of the questioners already wanted to pull the plug on struggling players such as Keon Broxton, Jonathan Villar, Domingo Santana and Zach Davies.

Those fans wanted to know when the likes of outfielder Lewis Brinson and pitchers Josh Hader and Brandon Woodruff are going to be summoned from Class AAA Colorado Springs. What are the Brewers waiting for, they asked?

Well, what the Brewers are waiting for is the right time to contemplate those moves, as well as others. And that time is not during the first month of the season, barring injury or something totally unforeseen.

The Brewers watched several players take their first step forward in the major leagues in 2016, and they want to see if there will be another step forward. Some likely will take a step backward, or perhaps just spin their wheels. But it takes time for any of that to play out.

General manager David Stearns and his staff have put a plan in place with the understanding that it will take time to come to fruition. They have been quite transparent about what they are trying to do, so I’m somewhat amazed – only somewhat – by those who expect them to pull the plug on slumping players less than a month into the season and start fast-tracking prospects to the majors.

I asked manager Craig Counsell if patience is the No. 1 ingredient in a large-scale rebuilding project.

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“I don’t know if it is the No. 1 thing, because I would say talent evaluation is probably the No. 1 thing,” Counsell said, making a very good point. “But I will say that the one thing that is challenged almost every day, no matter what you are doing, is patience. It is always challenged.

“It is discipline, too. I look at it as discipline sometimes.”

Discipline indeed is a good word for all of this. You must have conviction in what you are doing and the discipline not to alter course every time there is a hiccup. Otherwise, folks will begin to wonder if you really know what you’re doing.

Yes, there are going to be potholes in the road. You almost expect them. Nobody said this was going to be easy. If it were, everyone would do it.

I remind you again how long it took the Cubs to go from awful to awesome. They lost 87 games in 2010, 91 games in '11, 101 in '12, 96 in '13 and 89 in '14. Then came the breakthrough with 97 victories and a wild-card berth in 2015 and 103 last year with that long-awaited World Series title.

I am not suggesting that we compare the Brewers’ rebuild to that of the Cubs. Every situation is different and Chicago has vast financial resources that Milwaukee never will be able to broach.

But, Cubs fans were taught patience in sometimes agonizing fashion. They were fortunate that Theo Epstein and his staff did not get impatient and start doing wacky things. They stayed the course and came out on the other side with a powerhouse club.

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So, this is why you don’t toss a player into the dumpster because he has three tough weeks. You see if the short-term pain will turn into long-term gain. If it doesn’t, then you make adjustments and start plotting the ascension of minor-league prospects to the majors, assuming they are deemed ready.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s hard,” said Counsell, whose club entered the weekend with a 12-11 record despite the handful of players off to poor starts. “You have to get it right. Some decisions are hard decisions but you have to get them right. That’s the big thing.

“It gets to the word ‘process’ a little bit. You have to stick to your tenets and your principles and your core beliefs. That’s what’s important.”

So, you stick with a Broxton to see if his talent will break through again. Suppose the Brewers would have cut the cord on him last season when he struggled in the first half. They would never have seen those marvelous six weeks he put together (.294, eight homers, 17 RBI in 46 games) toward the end before he broke a wrist crashing into the wall at Wrigley Field.

In his first three starts last season, Davies went 0-3 with an 8.78 ERA. Had the Brewers pushed the panic button and sent him back to the minors, they would have missed out on what he did the rest of the way – 11-4, 3.54 over his final 25 starts.

Can Villar be frustrating at times? Yes, he can. He began this season making careless errors, striking out in bunches and doing the thing that makes everyone crazy – getting picked off base. But he showed last year he has the combination of power, on-base skills and speed (.826 OPS, 62 steals) that aren’t easy to find.

You give players like that a bit more leeway to see what they might become. If they don't succeed at some point, you move on. But if you dumped a player every time he struggled for a few weeks, you’d run out of warm bodies before Memorial Day.

You stick with the plan until you absolutely must change it. And don’t expect the Brewers to do otherwise.

“There isn’t a threat of that,” Counsell promised.