Get ready for the struggles

Remember when the Milwaukee Brewers won the National League Central Division crown, and were two wins away from making it to the World Series? That was only two years ago, but the Brewers have gone from one of the best teams in baseball to one of the worst.

The 2013 season has come to a close and the Brewers finished with a disappointing 74-88 record, but their record was the least of their problems. The Brewers struggled with injuries throughout the entire season, and lost Ryan Braun to a 65 game suspension for his connection to the Biogenesis Clinic in Miami. While all teams have to face adversity over the course of a 162 game schedule, the Brewers never found away to overcome them. This is what sets the mediocre teams apart from the best teams in baseball.

The main reason why the Brewers were unable to overcome their difficulties was because of the lack of quality prospects in the farm system. While Khris Davis, Scooter Gennett and Tyler Thornburg all did a good job of filling in when needed, these three players, and frankly all the prospects that are within three years of playing in the majors, have no star potential.

In order to be successful each season you have to be able to develop young players. While not every one of them will be a star, you need to at least have a few of them with the potential to be one. The blame for the lack of development and poor evaluation of players in the draft has to be placed on Doug Melvin. While he is not a scout, he is the one who hired all of them and makes the final decisions on the players.

With the lack of quality prospects, it will hurt the Brewers success over the next three to five years. While the Brewers did trade some of their best prospects away in trades, the Brewers have hardly done anything to improve their system. This season they should have traded away numerous veteran to get pieces to build for the future, but Melvin decided not too.

This poor judgment and lack of ability to restock the farm system will cost the Brewers and should cost Melvin his job. He has made many poor decisions over the course of his tenure, and while the Brewers did have some success, it does not balance out all of the disappointing seasons.

The Brewers have one of the worst farm systems in baseball, and with none of their prospect possessing huge upside, it will not get any better. This will hurt the Brewers success at the major league level for the years to come, and Doug Melvin should be blamed and loose his job because of this.

It has only been two years since the Brewers came two wins away from making it to the World Series, and now they have become one of the worst teams in baseball. Being a small market team, the Brewers need to draft well and be able to develop prospects. This has not happened recently, and because of this, the Brewers will not be competitive for the foreseeable future.