Of course, Melvin didn’t always struggle in this facet of management. The first five years of his tenure (2003-2007) saw the Brewers draft Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo, Rickie Weeks, and Jonathan Lucroy, among others. Those players combined with Prince Fielder and Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, and Bill Hall — whom the team had selected in the pre-Melvin seasons — to form a strong nucleus that helped the club make playoff runs in 2008 and 2011.

After that, however, the prospect well dried up — such that, for five years running, the Brewers have placed in the bottom five of BP’s organizational rankings:

[Note: These rankings began in 2008.]

With the aforementioned core heading to the Major Leagues, Milwaukee sorely needed to replenish its system. Melvin responded with the opposite due to the club’s competitive window. In deals for CC Sabathia, Zack Greinke, and Shaun Marcum, he sent away Matt LaPorta, Zack Jackson, Rob Bryson, Michael Brantley, Lorenzo Cain, Jake Odorizzi, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffess, and Brett Lawrie. Some of those players didn’t end up accomplishing much, but the prosperity of some of them — particularly Brantley and Cain, each of whom has played at a borderline-MVP level in the past couple years — have made many fans regret the trades retrospectively.

Inadequate drafting compounded the woes of those deals. Jack noted in his piece that the club’s picks from later years haven’t yet amounted to much. Over the past few years, teams such as the Rangers have managed to maintain a solid minor-league system despite swinging big trades, and they’ve done so by constantly restocking their affiliates through the draft and international free agency. Part of that is good scouting, too, while part of that is a willingness to spend money. Melvin’s Brewers partook in the former half of the equation while neglecting the latter half, though, and it has come back to haunt them.

With that said, Milwaukee has made recent strides. BP’s writeup of the farm system stated that it possessed “talent to makes several teams quite jealous” — a massive improvement from its standing over the past several seasons. After spending the first half of the decade in the minor-league cellar, the 2015 Brewers have taken the necessary steps to move back up to the top half.

Part of this, in fairness, happened before this year. In August, Julien Assouline analyzed the team’s drafts under Melvin, who had perhaps not received the credit he deserved. Some of Melvin’s strengths there stem from the early years, but even in the later part of his run with the Brewers, they fared moderately well. Derek Harvey commented that the club’s drafts from 2009 to 2014, under late scouting director Bruce Seid, provided them with numerous quality players that presently stock their system. Indeed, of the top-20 current Milwaukee prospects, eight — Jorge Lopez, Devin Williams, Monte Harrison, Tyrone Taylor, Jake Gatewood, Kodi Medeiros, Yadiel Rivera, and Michael Reed — came from drafts during that span, while Orlando Arcia and Gilbert Lara signed with the team as amateur free agents in that period.

Still, an improvement of this magnitude, and in this short a span, suggests something different in the past twelve months. Part of the difference stems from the 2015 draft, which has (to this point) yielded incredible rewards. Four of those top-20 prospects came to the team in June: Trent Clark, Cody Ponce, Demi Orimoloye, and Nathan Kirby. Clark stands out as the best of the bunch, but all four have intriguing upside and could continue to blossom further. New scouting director Ray Montgomery, as Harvey observed, seems to have taken off.

The team’s decision to finally rebuild has helped with that. July saw them deal away established starters Aramis Ramirez, Gerardo Parra, and Jonathan Broxton, as well as (relative) stars Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers. Those trades — which, as J.P. Breen correctly posited, meant the team had recognized that its window has closed — brought back a great deal of prospects. Yhonathan Barrios, Zach Davies, Malik Collymore, Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, Josh Hader, and Adrian Houser now occupy various levels of the Milwaukee system; Phillips, Davies, Houser, and Hader ranked in the top 20, while Santana has already begun to contribute at The Show. Together with Marcos Diplan, an intriguing top-20 farmhand whom the team acquired in last January’s Yovani Gallardo swap, they amount to a formidable group.

Overall, David Stearns inherited a solid amount of prospects when he became the GM in August. Surveying the trove a couple weeks before Melvin stepped down, Derek Harvey concluded that the system had gone from the bottom to the upper half of the league — a prediction that, as stated previously, we’ve likely seen come true. Stearns didn’t stop there, though. In his four-odd months atop the organization, he’s made several trades to bolster the minor- and major-league depth, further improving the system as a whole.

The first two transactions came in mid-November. Stearns swapped Cy Sneed for the Astros’ Jonathan Villar, then followed that up by shipping Francisco Rodriguez to the Tigers in exchange for Javier Betancourt and a player to be named later (catcher Manny Pina). Seth Victor described Villar at the time as “a good acquisition for a team that needs middle infield depth and flexibility,” a player who won’t make a noticeable difference yet should still provide some value. Betancourt — who rounded out the top 20 — is, in Chris Crawford’s estimation, “a high-floor prospect with a fairly well-defined ceiling.” In other words, he could become a Villar-type player a few years down the road.

After BP published its top-20 list, Stearns has made a few more moves, evidently in an effort to muck up the rankings. First came the Adam Lind trade, which brought back three young pitchers: Carlos Herrera, Daniel Missaki, and Freddy Peralta. While I can certainly see the logic in Jack’s distaste for the deal — Lind gave us something to cheer for in this dreadful 2015 season, and those players always hurt to lose — I ultimately come down on the side of J.P., who expressed cautious optimism regarding it.

Not long after that, three more prospects came to Milwaukee. The day following Lind’s departure, the Red Sox sold Garin Cecchini to the Brewers for cash considerations. BP’s Bryan Grosnick called the deal “[t]he definition of ‘buying low,'” as a disastrous 2015 had caused Cecchini’s stock to plummet. Likewise, the players Milwaukee snagged in the Rule 5 draft — Colin Walsh from the Athletics and Zack Jones from the Twins — don’t carry elite pedigrees, or much upside, for that matter.

These deals nevertheless give the Brewers plenty of options for 2016 and beyond, as J.P. outlined a few weeks ago. (Plus, the quantity acquired from these transactions only increased thereafter, when the Brewers sent Jason Rogers to the Pirates, receiving Keon Broxton and Trey Supak in return.) Overall, the solid 2015 draft, along with Stearns’s willingness to trade anything not nailed down, has translated to a complete turnaround in Milwaukee’s minor-league system.

What does this mean for 2016? Well, as J.P. pointed out, the Brewers have more routes they can take at the Major League level; although few of those will likely lead to wins, the results should give the team some clarity for 2017. More immediately, it means the Triple-A Sky Sox will presumably play better in 2016. Michael Schwarz explained how that affiliate would progress with legitimate prospects filling its roster. The biggest takeaway here, though, is general optimism. Years and years of no future, at long last, appear to have come to an end. Now, more so than at any point in recent memory, there could be hope on the Milwaukee horizon.

From this awkward beginning there followed a mostly forgettable 2015 season in the Rocky Mountains. Like the Brewers, the Sky Sox stumbled out of the gate and never recovered, finishing in last place (62-81) in the Pacific Coast League’s rugged American Northern Division. Worse yet, with so many of the Brewers’ most exciting prospects distributed throughout the lower levels of the minors, the Sky Sox roster for much of the season lacked the sort of impact talent on which fans of the big-league club love to dream.

The 2016 campaign promises to be a different story.

The Biloxi Shuckers, Milwaukee’s Double-A affiliate, overcame a two-month road trip, won the first-half championship in the Southern League’s South Division, and finished the 2015 season with a league-best 78-59 record. Baseball America recently honored the Shuckers with its Minor-League-Team-of-the-Year Award. The rebuilding Brewers have no real incentive to rush their top prospects to the majors, so most of the players who starred at Biloxi in 2015 will likely open 2016 in Colorado Springs, which should make Sky Sox games must-see television for diehard Brewers fans.

Although parent clubs will not set their minor-league rosters until spring, the Sky Sox lineup should feature an interesting cast of position players, led by shortstop Orlando Arcia, who is Milwaukee’s top prospect and one of baseball’s best. Non-roster invitee Will Middlebrooks likely will compete with Jonathan Villar, acquired in November via trade with Houston, for the Brewers’ starting third base job. Both players are out of minor-league options, which means that Arizona Fall League standout Yadiel Rivera could be squeezed off the Major League roster and join Arcia in the Colorado Springs infield, unless he makes the squad as a utility infielder. The same goes for third baseman Garin Cecchini, a former top-10 prospect in the Boston system and also a recent acquisition by new GM David Stearns. With the Brewers infield further crowded by the arrival of Rule 5 pick Colin Walsh, fans in Colorado Springs could enjoy watching Arcia, Rivera, and Cecchini well into the summer.

Michael Reed, who played 38 games with the Sky Sox last season and subsequently received a cup of coffee with the big-league club, should be the top outfield prospect at Colorado Springs — that is, unless center fielders Tyrone Taylor and Brett Phillips arrive, which could happen as early as Opening Day. Meanwhile, fans of prodigious home runs will enjoy watching to see if former first-round pick Victor Roache can get to his raw power with more consistency in the mile-high altitude.

On the mound, Sky Sox fans should get a long look at two of Milwaukee’s best young starters, right-hander Jorge Lopez and southpaw Josh Hader. Lopez made two starts in the majors at the end of 2015 and has an outside chance of breaking camp as the Brewers’ fifth starter in 2016, either by winning the job from incumbent Zach Davies, who then would return to Colorado Springs, or, should the Brewers decide to give disappointing Matt Garza the “Edwin Jackson Treatment” and banish him to long relief, by joining Davies at the back end of a very young rotation. In all likelihood, however, Lopez will join Hader atop a strong Sky Sox rotation that also could include Biloxi standouts Tyler Wagner and Adrian Houser.

Finally, Milwaukee’s closer-of-the-future could emerge from among the Sky Sox relief corps. Arizona Fall League veterans Damien Magnifico, who led the 2015 Shuckers in saves, and Jacob Barnes, who averaged 10.08 strikeouts per nine innings with Biloxi, along with flame-throwing righty Yhonathan Barrios (acquired from Pittsburgh at the trade deadline for Aramis Ramirez) could comprise a young and formidable back end of the Colorado Springs bullpen.

The Pacific Coast League in general tends to produce inflated offensive numbers, and Colorado Springs in particular presents many of the same challenges that have frustrated Rockies pitchers in Denver for more than twenty years. Brewers fans, therefore, should avoid drawing conclusions about prospects from their Triple-A statistics. Taylor Jungmann, for instance, compiled a dreadful 6.37 ERA in 11 appearances (nine starts) with the Sky Sox before receiving a promotion to Milwaukee. In the majors, he posted a solid 3.77 ERA in 21 starts and became arguably the club’s most pleasant surprise at the big-league level in 2015.

Instead, fans should watch how the new Sky Sox compete, how well they play together, and how much they enjoy doing it. Scouts and other team officials tend to emphasize player development rather than minor-league win-loss records, and with good reason. Preparing prospects for the Major Leagues has always been a minor-league staff’s first priority, and mid-season promotions often wreak havoc on affiliates’ rosters, particularly the successful ones, which makes winning more difficult. On the other hand, good players who play well together tend to win more games, whereas affiliates of parent clubs with weak minor-league systems often lose more games than they win. In 2015, for instance, only the Angels’ affiliate in Salt Lake City and the Marlins’ affiliate in New Orleans lost more PCL games than the Sky Sox. It is no coincidence that those two clubs, the Angels and Marlins, have two of the weakest overall systems in baseball.  

Winning at the Triple-A level, therefore, is not the ultimate goal, but it can be one measure of a system’s overall health. While the 2015 Sky Sox finished 23.5 games out of first place, the American Northern Division’s other three teams produced three of the four best overall records in the 16-team PCL. Oklahoma City, Iowa, and Omaha finished a combined 60 games over .500. Oklahoma City is the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who boast arguably the top minor-league system in baseball and most certainly three of its top prospects in Corey Seager, Julio Urias, and Jose De Leon. Likewise, Iowa (Cubs) and Omaha (Royals) have helped develop players for two of the most talented rosters in the majors. A much-improved Colorado Springs squad, therefore, will have the opportunity to test its mettle by competing in one of the strongest divisions in all the minors. Considering that many of the best players on the Sky Sox roster will find their way to Miller Park by 2017, that competition should be well worth watching.

Of course the big-league club will always be the feature attraction, so fans hopefully will enjoy cheering on the rebuilding Brewers in 2016. On those long summer nights, however, when frustrations mount and the Milwaukee bullpen is active by the third inning, do yourself a favor, get the MiLB.TV minor-league package, and check out the Sky Sox game. Help, you will see, is on the way.