It wasn’t us, Doug! A grass roots movement is taking place, rising up against the tyranny of Doug. The valet at a steak house in Indianapolis lost Doug Melvin’s car keys and he is now stranded at the restaurant. Perhaps it was Mark trying to get the keys to Miller Park back but grabbed the wrong set instead.
Doug wants the rest of the winter off
Two signings today. Before I can comment on it, I need the break down of terms per year. My gut feeling is that we’ll back load the contracts, making any chance to offload more difficult. But I’m assuming.
Wolf signed for three years at just under $30,000,000 with a club option for a fourth.
LaTroy Hawkins signed a two year $7,500,000 contract as setup man.
Welcome to the Zaunbie Nation
His website is something else
Today Doug Melvin announced the signing of Gregg Zaun, a Type B Free Agent catcher from the Rays organization who was offered arbitration. Terms are decent, $1.9M in 2010 with $600K in bonuses based on starts and a $2.25M club option with a $250K buy-out ($2.15M guaranteed). At first, I was kind of happy and proud of Doug. We now are 100% Kendalless, having a decent catcher allows us to non-tender Rivera to save some money (~$1M) and we can have Salome/Lucroy back him up. Not a horrible plan hatched.
But then I read this by Tom H at the JS blogs.
“(GM) Doug (Melvin) and the Brewers separated themselves from the rest of the pack pretty quick. They really stepped up. Plus, they said it’s a starting job.”
Not many clubs offer starting jobs to 38-year-old catchers but Zaun, who has played more than 110 games in a season just once, said he’s up to the task.
“Most people don’t look past the first line on the media guide (where age is listed),” said Zaun, who started 74 games last season while splitting time with Baltimore and Tampa Bay. “I spent my first eight years as a backup. I didn’t get to start until I got to Toronto (in 2004).
“I’m in better shape now than I was when I was 28. Obviously, things change in this game quickly. But I’m ready to catch four out of every five starters. That’s the indication I was given.”
“(GM) Doug (Melvin) and the Brewers separated themselves from the rest of the pack pretty quick. They really stepped up. Plus, they said it’s a starting job.”
Not many clubs offer starting jobs to 38-year-old catchers but Zaun, who has played more than 110 games in a season just once, said he’s up to the task.
“Most people don’t look past the first line on the media guide (where age is listed),” said Zaun, who started 74 games last season while splitting time with Baltimore and Tampa Bay. “I spent my first eight years as a backup. I didn’t get to start until I got to Toronto (in 2004).
“I’m in better shape now than I was when I was 28. Obviously, things change in this game quickly. But I’m ready to catch four out of every five starts. That’s the indication I was given.”
Emphasis is mine. Wait.. out with the old Kendall who played 132 games last year and really wore down as the year went on. And in with the new cheaper version of Kendall promised approximately 128 games? For a guy that will be 39 for the 2010 campaign and 3 years older then Kendall… what are you thinking Doug? Since Macha seems to enjoy giving his players chances to earn their incentives (i.e. Todd Coffey), I’m sure we’ll see plenty of Zaun when he’s too worn out to play. What the hell. You will also note that he mentioned it was a starting job. Remember when you didn’t offer Lopez arbitration due to fears of accepting? Did you tell him he’d be a backup? Doug, players want to play.
If you haven’t, check out his website. It’s really something else. I’m pretty sure that we can add this to the list of things Doug looks for in a free agent: A crazy website with a cool catch phrase of “Bring your Z game.” I never looked at Corey Patterson’s site—maybe it’s better then Zaun’s. I use baseball-reference a ton, I even sponsor a page (Go Dave Bush!), because getting them money is a big plus. But if you look at his BBRef page you’ll notice his sponsor is also his agent. Thats like being the kid in grade school who only gets one valentine – and it’s from your mom.
Here’s your chance Mark….
Tom H tweeted the following..
Brewers GM Doug Melvin meeting with owner Mark Attanasio in LA to line up financial ducks for offers to free agent pitchers.
Hopefully is smiling because he made some major off-season front office moves
Marks’ not a dumb guy—he seems to have a grasp of our market and how it all works. Previous posts touched briefly on the fiscal constraints we have. A quick summary is: $90M is our theoretical max, $84M is perhaps a best guess, but in this economy and with a mounting backlash against the Front Office failures could possibly even point to “status quo”. My best guess is that $66m is already tied up, and we require 4 position players, 1 bullpen arm and a starting pitcher. So there you have it… limited resources that need to go rather far. Mark’s a rich guy, but he can’t afford to throw millions upon millions into the club.
So here’s your chance Mark. Ask the hard question. I’ll even give you a few to get the conversation rolling…
- What is the long term strategy of the club? Right now we aren’t sure what we are doing here. Are we building through the minors to build the majority of our club, or are you trying to finish your career where you started? You know, the Pirates farm club.
- Do you understand the blow back against our club due to not offering arbitration? We already face declining projections for attendance next year due to 2009 performances. How is waiving the white flag going to inspire fan buy-in? Halama isn’t doing it. This goes back to the lack of a strategy. Yes we understand you can’t simply appease the fans, but what’s the upside of not getting a sandwich pick?
- Spare me the small market team crap. The Twins made the post season while spending $12M less last year then we did. (Looks like the Cubs have a ton of money already tied up for years to come). How are you going to manage the club better in the future to ensure that our strategy matches our market constraints? Stop just bitching about it while not doing anything for the club. You can work the system while trying to change.
- Why the hell didn’t we figure out our fiscal outlook before declining arbitration to Lopez?
That should start a long conversation hopefully ending in the realization that the club isn’t improving with Doug at the helm. I’d also like to encourage you to not allow Doug to harm the club in 2011 and beyond by making poor decisions now. 2011 is a pretty banner year for the club: Suppan and Halll finally come off the books. $20M dollars are coming off, and you need to protect your investment by not allowing him to make horrible decisions like those. The Brewers need pitching. Randy Wolf and Doug Davis. although better then what we had last year, should not be considered in any long-term strategy for the club. Don’t pick up pitchers to give the illusion you are doing something. Make it count or limit the damage to a year so when $20M becomes available you can do something useful with it. Can you imagine what we could do with that money right now?
Draft picks be damned: How to bungle Arbitration
Arbitration needs to be filed by the club by 11:59pm EST tonight. But we don’t have to worry about the suspense, Doug made the decision to not offer arbitration to any classified player per Haudricourt. It’s no real surprise on some of those players. Doug moved on from Cameron after rushing the trade of Hardy for Gomez. Cameron has plenty of value, but is dangerous if he accepts due to his salary and potential Arbitration numbers. Looper, Kendall and Weathers are not very good at the game of baseball anymore, and it’s smart that we moved on. But then there is the matter of Lopez.
Lopez is indeed a client of Scott Boras, and with that said has a vast vast history of not accepting arbitration to maximize his own profits clients salary in the free market. So why then did Doug not offer arbitration to Lopez? Let me pour two fingers of scotch and we’ll dive right into it.
Adam McCalvy blogged about the recent moves. You can read it here. There’s a lot of words there, and reading is hard. So here’s the big point.
“You would love to have that depth,” Melvin said Monday in previewing his looming decisions. “But is [Lopez] going to want to be a part-time player? He’s going to want to be an everyday player, and Rickie is going to want to be an everyday player. In some sense, you also ask, are you willing to trade the possibility of [acquiring] a pitcher for Felipe Lopez? That’s the question.”
That bold is mine. That is the very reason why Lopez and Boras would decline arbitration and see what you can get in the open market. And come on Doug, you pissed away our money for a free agent on Loopers option, Suppans boat anchor of a contract, and Halls salary (Go Mariners!). Stop saying it’s because of Lopez potential arbitration year money that we are in this mess. Hold on one more finger to go.
The only other reason the vast series of tubes could think of is that Melvin is once again going to his talking points, something he must have learned while reading “Going Rogue” by Palin. Always go to the talking points, and in this case.. like all cases… it’s all about the small market woes. Due to the great strain an extra draft pick would place on the system. You know, because of how expensive a sandwich pick signing really is. It’s completely unfair.
The only good thing about not offering arbitration to Lopez is this.. all you reading this..(hopefully it’s not just mom this time) welcome to the Fire Doug Melvin side. Hopefully the two fingers of scotch helped you as much as it helped me.
Don’t worry, Halama will save us!
Our pitching woes have been solved. Today Doug announced the signing of John Halama to a minor league contract. He hasn’t pitched in the Pros since 2006, but has similar numbers to Braden Looper. In fact his HR/9 rate is actually a bit worse then the Looper. It appears to be a move to protect for long term injuries by stocking up the Sounds, and hopefully nothing else. But you don’t see why he has been signed… he has never played on the Rangers, and he’s not a washed up ex-Cardinal. The connection is that in 2003 he pitched under Ken Macha, so be prepared to see him used a lot if he makes it to the Pros.
The other move is Chris Capuano is back with the Brewers again. He signed a one year minor league contract with a spring training invite. He’s recovering from his second TJ surgery and looks to break to the pros with the club. It’s also a move to bolster the minor league system for any kind of extended injury. I like Cappy. His pick off move is the sweetness, but two TJ surgeries are pretty hard to come back from. Plus if he does crack the pros, he’s going to be limited big time to IP.
So what do these moves mean? Using our press conference media templates, I would have to say that these are going to be the internal candidates for the last starting pitcher spot once all of the good pitchers are off the market, and our salary pressures due to crappy contracts finally shows it’s ugly heads to the fan base. I for one welcome our new Capuano overlords.
And we are off…
Doug Melvins official season has started. The MLB Free Agency period has begun. Be prepared to be underwhelmed, as I noted before salary problems are already apparent. With $20m+ tied up on Hall/Weathers/Looper/Suppan we have a very small amount of money available. This is the last year of the Suppan contract (plus $2m next year for a buy out), lets just all hope that Doug doesn’t screw the club by signing another over valued free agent to a long term contract.
Stay tuned, we’ll update on all the news! And remember Doug, we already have prepared remarks for you.
Redesign!
For all you loyal readers (hi mom!) as you can see, FireDougMelvin.com has a new site design. Out with the old blogging software and in with the new. I was able to migrate all the old nuggets of GM wisdom over… so if you are new: Check out the archives.
Hopefully this prettier version will help our cause and bring down Doug just like Ned. Till then, keep fighting the good fight.
Have we missed our window?
No, not the super efficient green windows. I’m talking about our playoff window. I remember being able to walk up to Miller Park for just about every game in the early 2000s and get a really good seat (Ok, buy a cheap seat but walk down to great seats). Beer was cheaper, but the quality of the game being played on the field was bad. I remember the mantra of the front office during the times of multiple 90 loss seasons. For those of you that don’t remember or were too drunk during this period of time, it was “Wait till our prospects develop. The Brewers are going to build an elite farm system“. And by all accounts they seem to have done pretty damn well. (Thanks Jack Z… we miss you)
We were constantly told, “Just wait.” The Brewers drafted a kid with a funny first name–P something–Fielder (2002), Hardy (2001), Weeks (2003). We tried to be patient. We then added young guys like LaPorta (2005), Braun (2005), Escobar (2003) and Gamel (2005). We saw how our farm system got us Hall (1998) and he seemed to be working out well at the time. All we had to do is simply wait till these players developed, and if they became anything close to their ceiling we should have been sitting pretty. I bought into this belief; it’s the only way a mid-market team can survive right?
Now before you tell me the obvious, some players flamed (Hall), some players took a little more time to develop (Weeks), and some got traded away (LaPorta)–but over all the team has a great base of young talent. But, something scary and horrifying is just around the corner (and I’m not referring to the end of the world in 2012). In just about every scenario, this is the last year this crop of talent will be together. The biggest assumption is that Fielder will no longer be a Brewers in 2011 due to the Boras effect (we have to move him when he’s still valuable). The team will have lost a crucial piece in Fielder/Braun duo. Fielder will no longer be protecting Braun, Braun will see more junk and well–as you can see–offensive production will suffer. This round of young talent is singing its swan song. And what do we have to show for all this amazing cheap talent? One playoff birth.
But Sgt, that was the first time in 26 years, you are an idiot.
Will we ever use one again?
I may be an idiot, but I’m well aware of the length of the drought. I almost cried after clinching–I was in shock. I only drank three beers while tailgating game 3 of the NLDS because I didn’t want any of Miller’s finest products clouding my memory. I will never forget how electric it was to watch Bush pitch in the NLDS and how the entire city of Milwaukee hung on every pitch. Then game 4 came, and Suppan finally got a chance to show why we over-paid for him. Finally, after getting ripped on for 2 years by the fan base, Doug’s master plan was finally about to come together. right? It was time for our big game pitcher to pitch in a big game. I hate to bring up repressed memories, but that didn’t work out too well. Remember that lead off home run? I turned to my buddy Josh and said “Well, it was fun while it lasted“. As the fans’ hearts began to break, they took solace in the fact that one run didn’t take us out of it. Then the third inning came and Suppan dug a hole he couldn’t recover from. Philly never looked back. That ended my first, and maybe last, playoff series of my life. And what’s worse, Sheets was run out of town. Way to burn those bridges, Doug.
This brings me back to my point. Have we missed our window? I am going to say yes we have. The fan base bought like crazy in 2009 in the hopes that maybe the team can string together good years. The team lost CC and Sheets…we waited for solutions…and have yet to cease waiting. Instead of a quality pitcher with upside, we get Braden Looper. Our rotation stinks worse then my ass after a night of drinking PBR. Does 2010 look better? Not to me, due to our salary constraints and the wasted $25M for Hall/Suppan/Looper we just simply can’t afford to fix the problems. Doug’s mismanagement of our club’s resources have left us in a horrid situation. 2010 looks to be the swan song of our current group of players, and we simply have to wait till the newest crop of players develop. All we can do is hope that Doug doesn’t lock us up into another Suppan contract for someone like Doug Davis for 5 years. Yes, we can be worse in the NL at pitching–we can slip to dead last over the Nationals in team ERA. Things can get worse kids.
Maybe 2012 or 2014 we can make a run… assuming that world doesn’t end and Mark makes the decision we are all waiting for. The removal of DM. Till then, get used to being rejected by the baseball gods. I really hope I’m wrong, I really hope that some how we win big this year. But it looks like the players are going to have to do it with out the help of a good GM. Best of luck guys. I’ll be pulling for you, and I look forward to both Fielders and Brauns outbursts regarding the situation of pitching. Even an average staff gets us semi-close to the post season. Can we fix it with at most 16 million to sign one SP (maybe 2) and fill our holes? Seems unlikely to me.
Enjoy the swan song of Fielder/Braun, we saw one of the greatest duos in baseball. And remember who let it all slip away.
Now before you tell me the obvious, some players flamed (Hall), some players took a little more time to develop (Weeks), and some got traded away (LaPorta)–but over all the team has a great base of young talent. But, something scary and horrifying is just around the corner (and I’m not referring to the end of the world in 2012). In just about every scenario, this is the last year this crop of talent will be together. The biggest assumption is that Fielder will no longer be a Brewers in 2011 due to the Boras effect (we have to move him when he’s still valuable). The team will have lost a crucial piece in Fielder/Braun duo. Fielder will no longer be protecting Braun, Braun will see more junk and well–as you can see–offensive production will suffer. This round of young talent is singing its swan song. And what do we have to show for all this amazing cheap talent? One playoff birth.
But Sgt, that was the first time in 26 years, you are an idiot.
I may be an idiot, but I’m well well aware of the length of the drought. I almost cried after clinching–I was in shock. I only drank three beers while tailgating game 3 of the NLDS because I didn’t want any of Miller’s finest products clouding my memory. I will never forget how electric it was to watch Bush pitch in the NLDS and how the entire city of Milwaukee hung on every pitch. Then game 4 came, and Suppan finally got a chance to show why we over-paid for him. Finally, after getting ripped on for 2 years by the fan base, Doug’s master plan was finally about to come together. right? It was time for our big game pitcher to pitch in a big game. I hate to bring up repressed memories, but that didn’t work out too well. Remember that lead off home run? I turned to my buddy Josh and said “Well, it was fun while it lasted”. As the fans’ hearts began to break, they took solace in the fact that one run didn’t take us out of it. Then the third inning came and Suppan dug a hole he couldn’t recover from. Philly never looked back. That ended my first, and maybe last, playoff series of my life. And what’s worse, Sheets was run out of town, opting to take ZERO money then accept arbitration from the Brewers. Way to burn those bridges, Doug.
This brings me back to my point. Have we missed our window? I am going to say yes we have. The fan base bought like crazy in 2009 in the hopes that maybe the team can string together good years. The team lost CC and Sheets…we waited for solutions…and have yet to cease waiting. Instead of a quality pitcher with upside, we get Braden Looper. Our rotation stinks worse then my ass after a night of drinking PBR. Does 2010 look better? Not to me, due to our salary constraints and the wasted $25M for Hall/Suppan/Looper we just simply can’t afford to fix the problems. Doug’s mismanagement of our club’s resources have left us in a horrid situation. 2010 looks to be the swan song of our current group of players, and we simply have to wait till the newest crop of players develop. All we can do is hope that Doug doesn’t lock us up into another Suppan contract for someone like Doug Davis for 5 years. Yes, we can be worse in the NL at pitching–we can slip to dead last over the Nationals in team ERA. Things can get worse kids.
Maybe 2012 or 2014 we can make a run… assuming that world doesn’t end and Mark makes the decision we are all waiting for. The removal of DM. Till then, get used to being rejected by the baseball gods. I really hope I’m wrong, I really hope that some how we win big this year. But it looks like the players are going to have to do it with out the help of a good GM. Best of luck guys. I’ll be pulling for you, and I look forward to both Fielders and Brauns outbursts regarding the situation of pitching. Even an average staff gets us semi-close to the post season. Can we fix it with at most 16 million to sign one SP (maybe 2) and fill our holes? Seems unlikely to me.
Enjoy the swan song of Fielder/Braun, we saw one of the greatest duos in baseball. And remember who let it all slip awayNo, not the super efficient green windows. I’m talking about our playoff window. I remember being able to walk up to Miller Park for just about every game in the early 2000s and get a really good seat (Ok, buy a shit seat but walk down to great seats). Beer was cheaper, but the quality of the game being played on the field was bad. I remember the mantra of the front office during the times of multiple 90 loss seasons. For those of you that don’t remember or were too drunk during this period of time, it was “Wait till our prospects develop. The Brewers are going to build an elite farm system”. And by all accounts they seem to have done pretty damn well. (Thanks Jack Z… we miss you)
We were constantly told, “Just wait.” The Brewers drafted a kid with a funny first name–P something–Fielder (2002), Hardy (2001), Weeks (2003). We tried to be patient. We then added young guys like LaPorta (2005), Braun (2005), Escobar (2003) and Gamel (2005). We saw how our farm system got us Hall (1998) and he seemed to be working out well at the time. All we had to do is simply wait till these players developed, and if they became anything close to their ceiling we should have been sitting pretty. I bought into this belief; it’s the only way a mid-market team can survive right?
Now before you tell me the obvious, some players flamed (Hall), some players took a little more time to develop (Weeks), and some got traded away (LaPorta)–but over all the team has a great base of young talent. But, something scary and horrifying is just around the corner (and I’m not referring to the end of the world in 2012). In just about every scenario, this is the last year this crop of talent will be together. The biggest assumption is that Fielder will no longer be a Brewers in 2011 due to the Boras effect (we have to move him when he’s still valuable). The team will have lost a crucial piece in Fielder/Braun duo. Fielder will no longer be protecting Braun, Braun will see more junk and well–as you can see–offensive production will suffer. This round of young talent is singing its swan song. And what do we have to show for all this amazing cheap talent? One playoff birth.
But Sgt, that was the first time in 26 years, you are an idiot.
I may be an idiot, but I’m well well aware of the length of the drought. I almost cried after clinching–I was in shock. I only drank three beers while tailgating game 3 of the NLDS because I didn’t want any of Miller’s finest products clouding my memory. I will never forget how electric it was to watch Bush pitch in the NLDS and how the entire city of Milwaukee hung on every pitch. Then game 4 came, and Suppan finally got a chance to show why we over-paid for him. Finally, after getting ripped on for 2 years by the fan base, Doug’s master plan was finally about to come together. right? It was time for our big game pitcher to pitch in a big game. I hate to bring up repressed memories, but that didn’t work out too well. Remember that lead off home run? I turned to my buddy Josh and said “Well, it was fun while it lasted”. As the fans’ hearts began to break, they took solace in the fact that one run didn’t take us out of it. Then the third inning came and Suppan dug a hole he couldn’t recover from. Philly never looked back. That ended my first, and maybe last, playoff series of my life. And what’s worse, Sheets was run out of town, opting to take ZERO money then accept arbitration from the Brewers. Way to burn those bridges, Doug.
This brings me back to my point. Have we missed our window? I am going to say yes we have. The fan base bought like crazy in 2009 in the hopes that maybe the team can string together good years. The team lost CC and Sheets…we waited for solutions…and have yet to cease waiting. Instead of a quality pitcher with upside, we get Braden Looper. Our rotation stinks worse then my ass after a night of drinking PBR. Does 2010 look better? Not to me, due to our salary constraints and the wasted $25M for Hall/Suppan/Looper we just simply can’t afford to fix the problems. Doug’s mismanagement of our club’s resources have left us in a horrid situation. 2010 looks to be the swan song of our current group of players, and we simply have to wait till the newest crop of players develop. All we can do is hope that Doug doesn’t lock us up into another Suppan contract for someone like Doug Davis for 5 years. Yes, we can be worse in the NL at pitching–we can slip to dead last over the Nationals in team ERA. Things can get worse kids.
Maybe 2012 or 2014 we can make a run… assuming that world doesn’t end and Mark makes the decision we are all waiting for. The removal of DM. Till then, get used to being rejected by the baseball gods. I really hope I’m wrong, I really hope that some how we win big this year. But it looks like the players are going to have to do it with out the help of a good GM. Best of luck guys. I’ll be pulling for you, and I look forward to both Fielders and Brauns outbursts regarding the situation of pitching. Even an average staff gets us semi-close to the post season. Can we fix it with at most 16 million to sign one SP (maybe 2) and fill our holes? Seems unlikely to me.
Enjoy the swan song of Fielder/Braun, we saw one of the greatest duos in baseball. And remember who let it all slip away.
No Looper isn’t all sunshine
Doug finally made a good decision, not based on how often Loop takes the ball, but on actual performance. Braden Loopers option has been declined by the club and Looper is now $1,000,000 richer to hopefully throw meatballs to the Brewers next year. I applaud Doug for actually doing the right thing. See, I’m not all fire and brimstone. Good job Doug, you made the obvious choice. But, we are still in a pinch due to Dougs decisions and fiscal mismanagement.
I’ve made my best attempt at tracking the payroll for 2010. From everything I could piece together we are looking at a $80 – $90 million payroll. I’m going to assume Mark isn’t a tool and realizes that the play of the 2009 Brewers will mean a dip in attendance and won’t be allowing DM to spend up to the $90 million mark. Last year we ended at just about $80m, and to be nice I’ll assume we’ll spend an additional $4 million. $84m for your 2010 Brewers. So here’s the bad news, of that $84 million we have $13.05 million tied up in other commitments (Hall $7.125m, Riske $4.5m, Weathers $.400m, Looper $1m). Doing some quick math, we really have $74.95m payroll for our entire crew. I think you can now see how leveraged the contract of Suppan makes us, and think next year he’ll still be on the books with a $2m buy out. (That’s $25.55 million for Hall Riske Weathers Loop and Soup in 2010)
We have a ton of questions on our roster. Only two have been solved, Shortstop is now Escobars and Center is now Gomezs to lose. That gives us a lot of money from no Cameron ($10m) and no Hardy ($5.5m), but remember we have a lot of players who are also hitting the arbitration years. The money we saved is going to their raises. You can check out my attempt at following the roster by checking out my Brewers2010Salary.pdf track. As of right now, depending on specifics of Arbitration and who we keep (I guessed the keepers.. sorry McClung) we have about $17.430m left to spend and fill the following positions.
1) Starting Pitcher
2) Starting Pitcher (per Rhetoric so optional)
3) Starting Catcher
4) Backup Catcher
5) OF Bench
6) IF Bench
7) Bullpen Arm
$17.430m sounds like a lot of money right? But really it’s not that much left. The rhetoric going into the off season has always been that “We need 2 starting pitchers”, even if we clear off Bush’s numbers of $5.5 million we are still looking at $17.430m – $22.930m for 6 – 7 spots. With the prices of free agent pitching, I do not expect our pitching to improve much, unless we have break out years from our current staff and a resurgent Mulder (Who I assumes joins our club). I hope that it happens, but lets stop talking about landing Lackey, and lets just hope that DM doesn’t sign on another Soup like contract of a past their prime pitcher to a long term contract. Doug Davis is an upgrade to what we had last year, but really what wasn’t?
I’m touching on an article I’ve been thinking about for awhile. So I’ll stop and work on finishing the next article. But here’s a leak, it’s title “Have we miss our window of opportunity?”