From BP: Brewers Stearnly Assay Their Future

Hired David Stearns as general manager; Doug Melvin moves to an advisory role within the organization. [9/21]

Rumors swirled for months around the Brewers’ GM search, with most suggesting the club would target someone young, analytical, and ambitious. With Doug Melvin sticking around as an advisor and potential mentor, the organization had an opportunity to hire someone without direct experience as a general manager, or, in other words, to prioritize skill set and intellect without needing someone familiar with day-to-day operations in the position.

At only 30 years old and just eight years removed from undergraduate work at Harvard, David Stearns represents precisely those things. Owner Mark Attanasio hired one of the brightest up-and-coming minds in the baseball community. He spent time with Major League Baseball as the manager of labor relations—which included working on the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement—and is most known for his successful stints with the Indians and Astros. Those who have worked with him rave about his demeanor and potential.

For the last three years, Stearns served as the Houston Astros‘ assistant general manager, learning under Jeff Luhnow during the club’s recent renaissance. It’s difficult to ascertain which portions of the Astros’ overall philosophy mirror Stearns’ own, and we don’t know how heavily he factored into any specific trade or free-agent acquisition, but one can be relatively confident in assuming Stearns and Luhnow aren’t too far apart. It seems unlikely that the Astros’ general manager would have hired anyone who disagreed with the fundamentals put in place in Houston.

[Read the remainder of this article by J.P. Breen at Baseball Prospectus.]