RockCoCougars

Floyd may be a solid #3, but at this point the Brewers need a #1 or #1b. In my view, Gallardo is a 2 pitching as a 1 and Wolf is a 3 (at best) pitching as a 2. I don't see a need in stockpiling #3 starters. Floyd will be getting relatively expensive after this year as well. I'll take my chances going into the season with Prince, either taking the draft choices or don't forget that there's the option of flipping him for a package at the deadline if the team is not in contention. If he has his typical huge odd-numbered season, and a team wants to go all in to make a run, you might just get a nice haul for him in July. By then, you will have a better picture of the near term future of these team (they may have to rebuild somewhat if they play as badly as they did in '10). That said, I still think that this team can compete next year if they make the right moves- without Fielder's bat, unless you get an impact arm in return- they won't be as good on paper.

I thought that Floyd was only signed through 2012. At any rate, even if he is locked in until 2013, I'm not interested. He is not the #1 or #2 that is needed. Prince is an elite hitter, Floyd is a slightly above average starting pitcher. I'd rather have the picks. How does a .919 OPS translate to the AL- more specifically, the hitter friendly park in Chicago? I can see why the White Sox want Fielder, but they don't really have anything that I'd be interested to give back. Hopefully, they end up overpaying for Dunn.

Exactly. I'm still trying to figure out why many are so high on Dickerson. I'd be willing to bet that both Dickerson and Boggs aren't on the final roster, it will most likely be one or the other (if both are on the roster it doesn't bode well in my view).

Gavin Floyd for Fielder? Yuck. I'd rather just let Fielder walk and take the two draft picks than settle for mediocrity- especially a guy who is only locked in for one season more than Fielder. I may be missing something, but a year of Fielder and two high draft picks or what Prince would bring at the deadline is worth more than two years of Gavin Floyd. By the way, wasn't Floyd shut down last year because of shoulder issues?

I think that most are reading too much into this, though I question why a non-roster invite wasn't enough. All this means to me is that Hinske probably is going back to the Braves, and this is solely a move for depth. I doubt that it has any implications on what's going to happen with Prince, McGehee or even Gomez. I would liken that type of speculation to the Bucks signing Francisco Elson and then speculating about what they are going to do with Bogut.

I'm not sure that Dickerson should be a lock for the final roster as we stand. Assuming both Gomez and Cain are still around to man center, a Hinske signing would make Dickerson pretty much expendable. As the jsonline blog said today, the team needs some guys with pop on the bench, not a bunch of singles hitters.

Hopefully Cappy is Plan A in this scenario. It's hard not to root for a guy who wants to pitch, as evidenced by how he worked his tail off to come back, and was pretty close to lights out last year in the minors and with the Brewers once Macha finally gave him a chance. Washburn on the other hand is older, with iffy stuff to begin with- not to mention extremely rusty. I also question his motivation to play if $5 million was not enough for him to join a team about an hour and a half from his hometown last season.

If McClung wants to keep playing, what would it hurt to give him a NRI? Macha blackballed him with the Brewers, but the guy has a live arm.

I'd match the Braves offer. If he wants to play closer to where he grew up fine. If he wants to play with his current teammates that's fine too. I don't want him to be given two years and then have injuries or something turn this in to a Jody Gerut deal where a guy is making $2 million bucks to 'rehab at home' or something. $2 million may not seem like much, but as we've seen with a lot of the lowball garbage deals that Melvin has done, it adds up pretty quickly. There will be plenty of 'guys' (like Kapler, Edmonds, etc.) available for cheaper on a one year deal. Hinske would be a nice piece off the bench, but let's face it, if he's playing a regular role on the Brewers, the odds are pretty high that the team won't be competitive.

I'd rather eat a can of Alpo cold than basically slot Washburn as the #4. If he wants to come to camp as a NRI, and compete to make the team for a relatively modest salary, I'll give him that chance. If Melvin gives a guy like Washburn a Doug Davis type deal, I'll bang my head against the wall. Let's face it, the guy is old, wasn't more than a solid #3, 10 years ago at his peak, is coming off a rather severe knee injury (which often leads to arm injuries for pitchers), as others have said- has pitched almost exclusively in pitcher's parks within a pitcher's division, and most importantly won't have pitched for well over a year. The only way that I'd even consider giving Washburn a 1 year/$4 million deal would to be as a bone to toss Boras for agreeing to a reasonable contract extension for Fielder (if Washburn hasn't fired him).

Good. That allays my fear of a Fielder/Porcello blockbuster somewhat.

Interesting. I remember the Selig-Prieb regime propagating something fairly similar about Marquis Grissom when they traded for him. Needless to say that streak was toast very quickly. At any rate, I'd be OK with Hinske for one year, but I'm not giving him a two year deal.

I'll echo the 'run don't walk' advice. Though it seems harsh, I have seen friends involved with situations fairly similar to this, though not as extreme, but things generally turn ugly pretty fast. If you choose to stick it out you will most likely be in a world of hurt for the next several years. The longer that you stay, the deeper you will get pulled in. If you do stay, plan to open yourself up to future heartaches- also plan to open up your wallet, because this situation will cost you major coin

Not the most sexy move, but if the Brewers need a 'Wisconsin vet' to fill out the roster, he'd be preferable to me as opposed to Washburn or Counsell.

OK, Daniel Hudson then.... At any rate I disagree. Duke was very highly regarded in 2005. Like Bumgarner, he didn't have amazing stuff, but he had the fast rise to the majors and brief outstanding minor league track record, they were both roughly the same age as well. Duke also got off to a better start to his career than Bumgarner. I think that they are very comparable, Bumgarner had the rep as a hard thrower, but if he actually was throwing in the mid 90's at some point, he's taken a huge hit in velocity for whatever reason. At any rate, I didn't mean to take a dump on Bumgarner, I was making a statement as to how fleeting young pitching brilliance can be.

Ah yes, the Madison Bumgarner of 2005. Just goes to show that a lot of this 'young pitching' doesn't pan out. As for the Brewers signing him, I think that given his subpar stuff, the only chance Duke has to make it at this point is to become the next Jamie Moyer. Let another team take that chance.

Agreed. Melvin had his chance on getting Pavano (when he was fairly cheap) for almost nothing from Cleveland at the trading deadline in '09. He probably could have retained him for pretty cheap this season. Instead, he chose to pursue Vargas and Weathers. Getting Pavano made complete sense then, it makes absolutely no sense now. Anyone that wastes money on Pavano on an uptick risks looking very very foolish. I read that people in the Yankees organization are still angry about how he conducted himself (namely 'rehabbed') during his time there. I'm hoping the fact that Attanasio was a Yankees fan causes him to veto this.

Over 32 years old.... check. Struggles to top out at 90 mph....check Off arguably a career season after a shaky past....check. Sounds right up Melvin's alley to me.

Why can't they pay both, especially for next season? Even with raises coming to Hart, Gallardo, Braun and hopefully Weeks, there is a ton of dead money - it has to be somewhere in the range of $20 million at least- coming off the books (even with buyouts) for Suppan, Davis, Bush, Riske, Hoffman, Hall, Zaun and Counsell. If Prince can be re-upped you have four solid offensive pieces in place for a long time. As for the other positions, Cain, Lucroy and Escobar along with the young bullpen guys should be cheap for the next three years at least. McGehee might start to get a little spendy in a few years, but that can be dealt with at the time - not to mention that Gamel is waiting in the wings. Outside of the aforementioned guys, the only one who is expensive is Wolf (who will be in the last year of his contract when a Prince extension would kick in. If they could find a way to keep the four offensive guys intact pick up Greinke to go with Gallardo, hopefully locking him in (you could backend a deal for the season Wolf is still of the books), I wouldn't be upset if these guys took 90% of the total payroll. Assuming Prince would get a little over $20 million, Greinke somewhere in the $15 million range and Weeks a little over $10 million, you'd be looking at a payroll in the $90-95 million range, with Wolf it would be about $100 million in 2013- this is assuming that most of the rest of the roster would average out to $1-$2 million a piece. Would Attanasio do that? I'm not sure

I think it was Burnitz for Nevin if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure if it was that, or if there was some type of salary dump implication (the Padres or whoever wouldn't eat enough salary...... a 'Selig-Prieb special').

I think 4 years/ $40 million sounds fair, though. The Brewers really should have done this last off-season, they probably could have saved at least $2-3 million a year. He is somewhat of an injury risk, but so was Paul Molitor at this point in his career (I know I use that one a lot, but still). If they don't get this done now, and he has another season like last year, may as well kiss him goodbye.

There are always other methods to replace the starting second baseman; they tend to not be too expensive on the FA market. Ronnie Belliard?

This is the type of thinking that lead to A. Escobar being your starting SS. I for one was never in the trade JJ camp. Nor was I. I think one thing that fans really underrated was Hardy's defense. In my view, he was the best defensive Brewers shortstop since Yount. He didn't make a lot of highlight reel plays, but he made almost every play that he should have with some great ones thrown in. Everyone had Escobar pegged in as the next Ozzie Smith, but it wasn't like the Brewers were replacing a subpar Jose K. at short or anything. Instead of Ozzie Smith, they got Royce Clayton (the Brewers' version). Once they made the rash moves in giving Hall away for nothing while paying his salary and sending Hardy down to the minors (bush league in my view), they made their bed. Now they have to lie in it, and hope that Escobar gets everything together.

In my opinion, Lawrie is a coin flip at best. Though he has all 'the tools', the kid is only around 20 years old, and has by no means tore up the minors thus far. He is no sure thing in my book. In my opinion, at some point, he ends up in the outfield anyway, and the Brewers have Hart, Cain and Braun locked up for the next several seasons. Even if Prince walks, passable first basemen are fairly easy to find, or you could move Hart to first and pick up a corner outfielder who are generally easy to find as well. Sometimes, you have to give up the blue-chip prospect to get things done. In my view, this team can be competitive next season if they make the right moves. In a lot of ways, things are akin to 1980. That season, the Brewers finished way behind Baltimore with a fairly shaky starting staff and leaky bullpen that lacked a closer. Instead of throwing up their hands and assuming that they had to rebuild to compete with Baltimore, they traded the 'next Roberto Clemente' in David Green as probably the key piece in the Fingers/Vuckovich/Simmons deal. True, that deal would never happen these days due to economics, but Green was fairly similar to Lawrie in that he was very young (19?), and very highly regarded, but his tools never translated to minor league success. Green ended up as a flop (which is not to say that Lawrie will). My point is that sometimes you have to roll the dice and give up prospects to get a legit player to fill a pressing need. As far as my recollection, since the big trade with the Cardinals (we are almost 30 years to the day......where did the time go), the Brewers have only done this twice: for Don Sutton in '82 and for C.C. in '08. Both times it worked out pretty well (even though Kevin Bass turned out to be a pretty good player)

As far as I'm concerned, an extended Weeks makes Lawrie the Brewers most valuable trading chip. I don't think Lawrie is going to play 2nd anyway, my bet is that he will end up as an outfielder. As far as Escobar goes, I'm willing to give him another year. In 2011, if he plays like he did last year, it's time to think about whether he is the long term solution. It will be salt in the wound if Hardy bounces back, especially considering that even though he was injured much of last season, he outplayed Escobar both offensively and defensively. This could be a perfect example of why you don't trade a proven guy to make room for the hotshot phenom- sometimes it makes sense to do just the opposite.