The Hall of Brewers We Won’t Miss: Nominee #7

This comes directly from my personal collection. If only I could find cards worth something.

It all comes down to this. Our final nominee. It has been an interesting ride the past 7 weeks. If I have noticed anything about this group of nominees, it is a much more recent group than the 2012 nominees. Aside from me tossing Billy Jo Robideaux in there, these are all players who should be fairly fresh in your memory.

Our final nominator is the newest writer for Reviewing the Brew and he is doing an awesome job. His reward for jumping right into the fire? He gets to make the final nomination prior to voting (which will be ready for tomorrow). I do not know much about Ryan yet, so I am going to take some guesses. Ryan Connor is the Lord High Chancellor of Whitewater baseball. He is a self-proclaimed Libertarian and is currently owned by a young woman named Hannah. Since those are all of the confirmed facts I have…he also is an avid bird watcher. Ryan once ate a pickled egg because he dared himself too. His brother John has been known to get into wacky adventures with robotic beings from the future. One time, Ryan punched a rhinoceros just to make sure he had feelings. Be sure to follow Ryan on Twitter @rcon14

Nominee: David Riske

"This isn’t anything personal with Riske like it has become with the likes of Yuniesky Betancourt, but everything about Riske’s stint in Milwaukee was a flop. He never posted an ERA under 5.00 in his three years with Milwaukee. Initially desired because of his durability, Riske dealt with injuries throughout his stay. Giving three-year deals to relief pitchers is rarely, if ever, a good idea. The David Riske situation in Milwaukee is Example A. It’s nothing personal David, but it just didn’t work out."

David Riske played for the Brewers from 2008 to 2010. As Ryan mentioned, he was in Milwaukee on a 3 year contract, which was 2 more years than necessary. He was born in Renton, WA…which I can tell you first-hand (since I lived in that area for 6 years) is not much of a baseball area. It is known for producing NBA players, such as; Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford, Brandon Roy, and Nate Robinson. Baseball is not something that is taken all that seriously, so my hates of to David for even making it to the big leagues.

This is a great nominee because he did nothing to make the Brewers better, yet was able to collect his very sizable paycheck. Nothing about Riske was every truly outstanding. He started his career in Cleveland and those were his best days. From there he pooped his pants in Boston, Chicago (Sox), and with the Royals prior to signing 3-year, $12+ million dollar deal with the Brewers. By my math, we paid Riske just shy of $300,000 per strikeout. Seems excessive…

The highlight of Riske’s career also impacted the Brewers in a serious way. Many people in the Royals clubhouse credited Riske with helping to turn around Zack Greinke’s career. Greinke of course went on to win a Cy Young award and pitch for the Brewers in 2011 and part of 2012. You could argue that this was the only good thing Riske did for the Brewers organization.

I don’t have anything else to add in this segment, so let’s look at the 3 categories that determine a true Brewers We Won’t Miss nominee.

Stats – Here is the line: 1-2 record, 5.40 ERA, 2 saves, 66.2 innings pitched, 40 earned runs, 33 walks, and 40 strikeouts. Over 3 seasons, he averaged 22 innings per season…that in and of itself is enough for him to be a frontrunner for the HOBWWM. That amount of work is barely acceptable for September call-ups and at $4 million a season, we should have gotten more out of this guy.

Money/Contract – $12.75 million dollars over 3 years. All guaranteed. One of the worst contracts in the history of the organization, especially when you consider that the Jeff Suppan and Eric Gagne deals (both members of the HOBWWM) happened in this same 3 year window (’08-’10). What were uncle Mark and aunt Doug thinking? We paid this guy $220,000 per inning pitched. Collectively…over the course of my entire life I have probably not made that much money.

Likeability – Seemed like a nice enough guy. Great teammate, everyone had nice things to say about him. Depending on how you look at it, this is his redeeming quality to stay out of…or his biggest detriment to getting into the HOBWWM.

Now it is up to you. When it comes time to cast your vote…is David Riske a player you Won’t Miss for all of eternity? Or is he just that guy who you almost never saw on the field, but when he did show up you sighed and went to get a beer from the fridge? You will have to decide soon enough.

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