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Shortly after he took over the Milwaukee Brewers in an 11th-hour, owner-driven move that left baseball purists gasping, interim manager Dale Sveum was asked about his equally surprising decision to move Mike Cameron to the top of the batting order.
“He’s my leadoff hitter ’til death do us part,” Sveum said.
Mike Cameron?
Now, Cameron is a lot of things. He’s a good power-hitter, a great fielder and a solid influence in the clubhouse. But he is not — repeat, NOT — a leadoff hitter.
Oh, he’s fast and will take a walk on occasion, but Cameron strikes out more than anyone on the team, has a low on-base percentage and is a career .250 hitter. He’s the antithesis of a contact hitter.
Yet, Sveum felt he was Milwaukee’s best option to bat leadoff after he replaced Ned Yost as manager for the final 12 games of the season.
More than anything, Cameron hitting leadoff revealed the Brewers’ biggest problem during a riveting season in which they finally made the playoffs but didn’t have enough to win once they got there: While they had many talented hitters, they had a horribly dysfunctional offense.
The batting order put together by general manager Doug Melvin had no balance. It was too right-handed. It had too many free-swingers and not enough guys who put the ball in play. It was too reliant on the home run and had little ability to manufacture runs.
There was a school of thought the reason the Brewers hit only .217 during September was because they were pressing too much or Yost was riding them too hard to snap the team’s 26-year playoff drought. Their four-game exit from the playoffs showed that to be a myth. The Brewers hit only .206 against the Phillies.
Worse, their power dried up, no surprise since home runs are generally harder to come by in the postseason. The Brewers didn’t hit their first home until Prince Fielder connected in the 33rd inning of the series.
Melvin’s first order of business during the offseason will be to make a call on the manager. He also must replace cult-hero CC Sabathia and oft-injured Ben Sheets in the rotation, find a closer who will be there from start to finish, patch up his leaky infield defense and figure out which of his young stars deserve long-term contracts.
Before Melvin does any of that, however, he has to construct an offense that will work on the days when the ball isn’t leaving the park. The Brewers didn’t have enough baserunners, which meant they didn’t give themselves enough chances to score runs. We’ve already seen changing the manager won’t change the hitters, so a remodeling job is needed.
Any reconstruction will start with a leadoff hitter. Free-swinging Rickie Weeks was miscast in that role, though he could still be a productive hitter lower in the order.
But the Brewers’ failure in the leadoff spot wasn’t the fault of Yost or Weeks. It was an organizational failure. There simply wasn’t a good option available.
If Melvin can’t find an effective leadoff hitter by spring, his all-or-nothing offense will continue to come up with nothing far too often for the Brewers to become a legitimate contender.
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