monty57

I think ewitkows hit it on the head. We wouldn't cut Estrada right away. Rather, he and Fiers would switch spots. Estrada would see if he can "right the ship" in the bullpen, while the Brewers get to see if Fiers can pitch in the MLB rotation the way he's pitched in AAA and the way he did for the Brewers a couple of years ago. If it works, great! If not, Estrada gets sent packing, Gorzellany will be back for the bullpen, and Nelson takes over in the rotation. I really, really wanted Estrada to pitch well. First, it would help the Brewers now, and second it would give them a trade chip in the offseason. But, with the team in first place and other options for the rotation, Estrada's leash can't be too long right now.

I don't think the Brewers will trade any of their starters this season, but to the discussion at hand: Adding Estrada would seem to make a lot more sense for a contending team that has a need for a back-of-the-rotation starter. If we were looking at getting a prospect in return for Estrada, this would seem to be the most likely route, as they may give up a prospect if the need for a "proven" MLB arm is there. I don't see a contender trading away a useful MLB piece, so if we were looking to use Estrada to get a "Hairston-type" piece, I don't see a contender giving him up. "Bottom feeders" often sign a veteran for the rotation if they don't have other options, so there is a chance a losing team would take Estrada to fill out the rotation for next year. I wouldn't expect much (if anything) in return, but if the Brewers were simply looking to clear salary and a roster spot this year, then I guess a last-place team might bite. In order for the Brewers to get anything in return, either the team would need to have an expensive player they're desperate to get rid of (Estrada's salary would offset the financial hit to the Brewers) or Estrada would need to look like a much better option than any of the "B-caliber" free agents who will be on the market this offseason. Otherwise, the team would simply pass on Estrada and sign the "B-caliber" free agent. This seems a bit far-fetched, but if the Brewers were really looking to trade Estrada this season (I don't think they will), they should keep all doors open. Either way, trading Estrada mid-season this year probably wouldn't return what the Brewers would be looking for, which is a MLB player who could help out this year. The contender wouldn't trade this player away, and the "bottom feeder" would rather receive a prospect than a 1.5 year rental of Estrada. That's why I think we'll use one of our "second tier" prospects to get MLB help this season, and will trade one of Estrada/Gallardo/Lohse (probably Estrada) this offseason.

Yeah, Oxy was saying things kind of tongue-in-cheek, so I just followed up that our AAA roster is mostly "organizational soldiers" with a few second tier prospects. Even with Nelson, it probably wouldn't be enough to land 1.5 years of a top player like Price, but without him, there's no chance it would get much in trade. I don't think that if Tampa made Price available, we would be able to put the highest bid together for him. Sure, if we used MLB guys, we could get him, but we wouldn't do that, so even the thought of landing Price is pretty far-fetched. However, even if a package of Nelson and two of our other top guys would get him, I still probably wouldn't want to do it. Our starting pitching has been a strength this season, so there's no need to give up six years of a good young pitcher in Nelson (plus the other guys) to get Price. If we're going to be "buyers" this year, I'd much rather do a "Hairston-type" trade using one of our second tier guys (who probably would never see the big leagues in Milwaukee) in order to get a veteran on the last year of his contract from another team. This thread is about Tampa, and all the guys discussed would be here for at least 1.5 years, so I think we'd have to give up too much to get them.

What if we brought up Nelson, then gave the Rays the rights to everybody else on the Nashville Sounds roster? Obviously, the Huntsville roster has outclassed AA, so they are all ready for a call-up. Bump everybody else up a notch and give the ARZ rookie league staff a year off. I think Josh Prince is still around in AA, so he can take the emergency spot that Elian Herrera and Irving Falu have played for us this year (he's done it before, he can do it again!) Outside of Nelson, I'd give Tampa the rest of the Nashville roster for Price. We'd essentially be trading Jungmann, Morris, Gindl and Pena for Price, which they wouldn't do.

I never had a problem with Bianchi because his role was to be the "play anywhere" utility IF. He is an excellent defender, so I have no problem with him filling in when Segura needs a day off. I'd rather have that than a guy who hits a bit better, but is a butcher in the field. That's why I don't really like Herrera. While he is supposed to be able to play any position, he doesn't seem to play any of them very well. Given everyday duty, I think they're probably equal in terms of hitting ability, so I'd choose Bianchi. It's not our bench players' fault that we went into the season with two 2B-only guys. That has limited our roster and forced guys to play positions they shouldn't, like Herrera and Reynolds in the OF. Honestly, it's probably the reason Herrera is on the MLB roster, because we don't have room for a 5th OF, so we need a guy who "plays" there. The bench should have defined roles. It needs some defense-first players, and some guys who can come off the bench to pinch hit. Platoons at 1B and 2B, along with an injury-prone 3B whose backup is one of the 1B (meaning the bad hitting 1B has to play everyday) & injury-prone RF (which hurts when we can't have a 5th OF) have caused problems. With the platoons, we're forced to have guys like Herrera. We just got stuck with an inflexible roster. However, if you are looking at the strength of the bench, you do have to include the whole bench, so eliminating Weeks and Maldonado doesn't work. Weeks' role is 2B platoon/primary RH bat off the bench. Overbay's role is backup 1B/primary LH hitter. You can't include the one performing poorly and not the one performing well.

Agree Briggs, although I believe Estrada will put up better numbers than he's currently showing. Players generally end up somewhere around their talent-level, so just like I didn't believe the rest of the staff would continue to put up the Cy Young numbers they started with, I think Estrada will pitch better going forward. I doubt the Brewers will be "ballsy" enough to trade away someone from their MLB rotation mid-season, but they have to do something next offseason. Estrada seems the most likely guy to go. If all he brings back is a decent-upside guy in the low minors, so be it. Hopefully he'll get more than that, but who knows how the next few months will pan out.

would be worth getting this year if it would bring Milwaukee to a World Series Well sure if you knew you'd win the World Series. However, what "rental" players do is slightly bump up the odds for a chance to make the playoffs / win the World Series in the current year. For that bump, you are giving up the "future potential" you are trading away. Basically, you're raising the odds this year by lowering the odds in future years. Lot of variables, but you're looking at very small sample sizes. Over half a season, a good player can perform poorly or a bad player can play like an All Star. So, unlike extending a good young player to a multi-year deal where you can be reasonably assured that he will perform well over the length of the contract, with a mid-season rental, you are hoping you don't catch the player when he's ready to hit a "cold streak," or get injured. Fans tend to like "rental" players because it gives them the feeling their team is "doing what it takes." Sometimes it works, and more often it doesn't (only one team wins the World Series every year). The funny thing is that fans/media rip teams for not "doing what it takes," but rarely is a team ridiculed for making a mid-season trade and still not winning, even though they probably cost themselves future wins in their futility. Very few "rental" plays end up like Sabathia, who pitched ridiculously well after the trade, but that one trade is seemingly seen as the expected outcome of any mid-season rental. That's not always the case - often the "rental" player doesn't play up to expectations. Which one would we get if we decide to give up any of our few decent prospects for the chance to "go for it" this year? But, beyond all that, the "superstar rental" doesn't seem to be out there, and even if he was, the Brewers are lacking in top-notch prospects they're willing to give up in order to get him, so I think this is a moot point. More likely, the Brewers will trade some of their non-Nelson pitching prospects to find a "Hairston-type" upgrade for the stretch.

H&T, I wasn't really suggesting anything. It's just that much like people throw around a lot of adages, people throw around the phrase "you can never have enough pitching." That got me looking at the pitching we have, and realizing that we have a glut of (relative to their level) old pitchers in the minors. That could be a "luxury," but there could also be negatives, such as the possibilty of holding back the more talented pitchers, who may not get moved through the system as quickly as they should. It does bring up the question of why we continue to sign MLB free agents when we have this glut, but whatever the plan, we really have to look at how to thin out the ranks of "MLB ready" starting pitching. This could be done by non-tendering Estrada (as at least one poster suggested), or not picking up Gallardo's option. However, I like getting value from value, so I would rather see us use some SP in trade to get back some much-needed position player talent. Again, looking at our system, it seems to be more of a question of "when" than "if." It also begs the question of whether we will trade from our MLB ranks or from the minors. To me, the most probable scenario seems to be some of our "2nd tier" guys (not Nelson or Thornburg) traded this season for "rental" MLB help, and Estrada traded this offseason. That would allow some mid-season promotions in the minors, and allow for Nelson to start next season in the MLB rotation.

Hope we don't mess with Fiers head at all by throwing him into the pen. I guess for a team that doesn't understand that backup shortstops don't make good starting 1B, the thought that bullpen roles should be filled with their best performing starting pitchers seems like a good plan.

Cy Sneed from Dallas Baptist. There's our college future reliever who should be under-slot to help afford the first three guys :-)

The Brewers seem to be pretty cognizant of who they can sign when they draft them. I'm confident they'll sign them, and after reading about these guys, I'm thrilled with our draft! It's cool that Medeiros and Gatewood know each other and have played together. Gatewood said all the right things in his post-selection interview (something about wanting to play defense behind Medeiros, and the two of them helping to bring a future championship to Milwaukee). It sounds like he's ready to sign and play. I wonder if their friendship helped the Brewers' strategy ("We'll draft you early, and if you sign for less than slot-value, we'll be able to draft your friend with our next pick and you guys can go through the system together.") This is why draft day is fun... it's a long way off, but I'm starting to get feelings of when they brought Fielder, Weeks, etc through the minors together. We're putting together some high-upside guys at the lower levels, and if they pan out, it could be a great story.

Re: The old adage "you can never have too much pitching" I'm sure the people of Huntsville loved having Taylor Jungmann back to start the season, and the people of Nashville love watching a rotation that is better than the Brewers have trotted out for much of their existence. However, the Brewers are position-player thin throughout the organization, while their pitchers sit in the minors through their mid-20's, and if they ever get their chance it will be in a bullpen role or because of injury, as we have our entire MLB rotation under contract through at least next season. That's probably "too much pitching." To point, happy 25th birthday Jimmy Nelson, born 6/5/1989. Hopefully when you celebrate your 27th birthday, it will be as a Brewer when they finally figure out their logjam. That you're probably better than at least half the pitchers toeing the mound at the MLB level doesn't matter, because you can "never have too much pitching." Jungmann will turn 25 in December. Fiers turns 29 in 10 days. Mills is already 29, and apparently we'll lose him soon if he isn't called up. Pena is 25. Blazek is 25. Hellweg will be 26 in October. Burgos will be 27 in August. At the AA level, Suter will be 25 in August. Gagnon turns 24 this month. Cravy turns 25 next month. Hall turns 24 this month. Barnes is 24. Moye will be 27 in September. Single A Brevard? Wagner is 23. Johnson is 23. Magnifico is 23. Bradley turns 24 next week. At least Lopez is only 21. That's our minor league starting pitching. Granted most will never make the majors, but good God, our AA squad is probably older than some MLB staffs. Meanwhile, we're so thin with position players that we've watched Overbay and Reynolds play nearly everyday at the MLB level with retreads like Bianchi, Falu and Herrera getting too many PAs off the bench. Edit: The headline on milwaukeebrewers.com is "Pitching pool catches Crew's eye entering draft." Where the heck are we going to put them? Rookie ball for the next few seasons?

Trades take a lot of effort to pull off. The more moving parts the more things can break down. So its hard to upgrade and sell off at the same time. Yeah, I mentioned earlier that most GM's/owners don't want to make a move that could blow up on them. In a trade of one of our MLB starting pitchers for a player who would be an upgrade on our MLB team right away, you'd not only need Melvin/Attanasio to completely change their m.o. and trade a "name" veteran player, you'd also need another team's management to go for it as well. Not likely. A team needs 7 to 8 starting pitchers. The Brewers have 6 or 7 ready to go. If the Brewers 5 starters average 28 starts each (what they averaged last year) that is 140 starts leaving another 22 starts, almost an entire starter's workload to be covered. And given how injuries are likely to occur you can't have just one guy make those starts. The Brewers do have "MLB ready" depth and could probably get away with trading one of their current MLB starting pitchers, but I doubt it will happen. Again with the Murphy's Law thing, if they stand pat, the rotation will stay healthy and fans will wonder why we didn't trade someone. If they make a trade, a couple of pitchers will go down, and the replacements will have some "bumps in the road," causing fans to scream that we never should have traded away a starting pitcher mid-season. Too much risk for the potential reward, as I think we'd demand a MLB player back in trade, and I don't think we would get a significant enough MLB upgrade at any position to merit the trade. It is unlikely that anyone on the 25 man roster would be traded. The starters are hard to be repalced and the bench is not good enough for anybody to want them. I can't think of many either. It wouldn't make sense to trade any position starters other than Reynolds or Overbay, and no one would want them, as they're the guys we're trying to upgrade. Weeks is still a possibility if the value back in trade outweighs his value to the team. Contrary to pre-season beliefs, he is actually providing value to the team, and I don't know that any team would pay his salary and give us enough to make a trade happen. If a starting pitcher were traded, I think it would be Estrada. Attanasio feels that fans like "name" players, so Gallardo, Lohse and Garza are probably not getting traded. I don't think Estrada will either, but if one is traded, it would likely be him. Assuming no other injuries happening before Gorzellany returns, it is possible a reliever could be traded, notably one of the lefties. It won't be Smith, so that leaves either Gorzellany, Duke or Wang. Veteran lefty relievers having good seasons have value, so Duke could bring back something valuable. Wang has enough potential that the Brewers are holding on to him, so I'd guess a "seller" would find a spot for him on their MLB roster for the remainder of the season and give us a "rental" they no longer need. It'd be nice if the Brewers can find a way to keep Wang for the future, but I could easily see the Brewers trading him for a mid-season upgrade.

1. Replace Overbay - he's bad. Reynolds isn't great, but he's passable. You don't need to replace Reynolds (although that's a possibility), just get a reasonable left handed bat for the occasional start at 1B. A guy who plays 3B as well would be great. Boy would it be nice if Taylor Green were tearing it up in Nashville. Unfortunately, he's sporting a line of .248 avg / .305 OBP / .369 SLG / .674 OPS in 141 ABs. I think Melvin took the adage "you can never have enough pitching" too literally over the past few years. We have a logjam of "MLB ready"starting pitchers, but no position players in the system who can even fill a bench role. Murphy's Law then kicks into effect and we have a healthy rotation and injuries all over the rest of the field.

"Selling" (trading the present for the future) and "buying" (trading the future for the present) are usually what's discussed around the deadline. Simply "trading" (a move where both MLB teams trade from strength for an area of need) could make sense, but I think most GMs/owners are scared to do this. There is too much chance of catastrophe for management to be willing to make the deal. For example, what if the Brewers trade Gallardo and then another starter gets hurt, or maybe Nelson doesn't pitch well in his rookie campaign. GMs/owners usually don't want to make a move that could be perceived as the reason they blew a playoff chance. Trading away a producing starter would fit in this category. More likely is that they will trade a fringe prospect for a bench upgrade As to the question in the title, the only example I can think of off the top of my head was the White Sox selling when they were three games back. They took a lot of grief for doing that... at least until the won the World Series not too many years after the "sell."

My biggest concern with the signing was his age. Most players are retired by his age, so I figured we'd get a good year last year, a so-so year this year, and a bad year next year. Thankfully, age hasn't seemed to effect him yet, and hopefully that lasts another season. It'd be nice to have a free agent pitcher signing we could chalk up as a good deal, or at least one that didn't end up with fans calling for the player to be cut midway through the contract.

Hopefully, the bump in offense will come when Ramirez is back. If we can get the "hot in the second half" Ramirez, that will give us another .900 OPS hitter, and Reynolds will move to 1B everyday, taking Overbay's wet-noodle bat out of the lineup. Reynolds is certainly SLG-heavy, but his offensive production should be at least close to average. Not ideal, but not something that will sink us. Of course, Ramirez still has to prove that age hasn't caught up with him. His injury is what's forcing Overbay into the lineup every day, and when he has been on the field, he's posted a .699 OPS. The key to the Brewer offense is whether Ramirez still has a good half-season of baseball in him. Let's hope so, because if he's healthy, we don't need a 1B upgrade, we just need to realize that Overbay should be off the roster.

Didn't know that. If that's the case, then I definitely want to see him remain in a limited role. If he helps us make the playoffs this year, then it's worth the $1MM. If not, then it'd be nice to keep him under 400 PA. $1MM may not seem like a lot in today's baseball world, but it could help us get an extra "piece" for next season, and it's never good to pay someone who's not playing for you. As of right now, we're about a third of the way into the season, and he has 84 PA, so he's only on pace for around 250 or so.

Wait... you mean that players will have ups and downs throughout the season and we shouldn't go butt nutty when a player is playing above or below his true talent level for a short period of time? I'm not sure exactly what we have in Davis, but he's probably a high-.700's-to-low-.800's OPS guy. Not a star, but a decent MLB LF, especially when he's cheap. I thought he might need some PAs in AAA to straighten things out, but he is clearly better than he was playing. Good to see he's back on track. As to Weeks, I have no idea where his "true talent level" is at this point in his career. I don't like that he wouldn't do what the team asked of him, as that's just part of being a "team player." That said, I've never liked having two 2B-only guys on the team, so it may make sense to let him play everyday (assuming he won't be able to hit the automatic vesting option) and send Gennett down to AAA just to get a more versatile/helpful player on the roster for a while. It's business, and that could let the Brewers get the most out of Weeks (now) and Gennett (in the future).

I'm not so sure about the bolded part. A couple of weeks ago, when the Brewers were still "hot," I mentioned that they would have some down times. I just cautioned that people shouldn't get too high on the highs, as it leads to getting depressed when the team plays poorly. Finally, I said that a hot start didn't really change much other than it makes the team more likely to be "buyers" than "sellers." All teams have ups and downs, and when they come during the season doesn't really matter. A ".500 talent team" will probably end up somewhere around .500. Many posters didn't agree. I was told I suffered from Gambler's Fallacy (I personally don't believe that a situation with thousands of variables like a baseball season is akin to a coin flip) and told that if we are truly a .500-talent team, we would play .500 ball the remainder of the season and therefore make the playoffs. I don't think that's how it necessarily works, it just means that a "hot streak" came at the start of the season as opposed to the end of the season like the last two years. I will just reiterate what I said then. The team will have highs and lows throughout the season. Enjoy the season, but don't get too high on the highs, or depressed when some things go wrong. Those things happen. I worry about "big picture/5-year plan stuff" all the time, but once the season starts that stuff is pretty much theoretical (other than trade deadline), so it's time to sit back and enjoy the show with the roller coaster ride it brings.

A) Allowing Herrera on the MLB roster. He plays every position, but none of them well. He has speed, but doesn't know how to run bases. He can't hit. B) Extending Overbay's career for one season too long. He plays one position, but not well enough to keep him on the roster. He has no speed. He can't hit. C) Adding that one expensive year on the end of Ramirez's contract so that we could get him for "nothing" in our 2012 "go for it" year. His inability to stay on the field has led to more playing time for Overbay, Herrera, Bianchi, and when healthy he has been lackluster. Let's hope he's healthy and productive for the remainder of the year to make this one a positive rather than a negative.

I think there is a lot of similarity to what we did with Aramis. Everyone else got scared by the age and we got him for reasonable value. That depends on your version of "reasonable." It may be reasonable if we got three years of his normal production, but we only got that for his first (youngest) year of the contract. Then we got a year where he only played about half the games, and he has already missed a lot of games this year. That's the problem with humans... they don't tend to age well. Buying the final years of almost any player's "monster contract signed when they were in their early 30's" is probably a bad idea, so as good as Beltre has been for the Rangers I would greatly discount for age and amount of money owed. I would also really investigate why Beltre has eight MLB seasons with an OPS under .800 in his career and why his hitting ability suddenly re-emerged since going to Texas. He's a wonderful player, but he's not guaranteed Hall-of-Fame numbers every year in his late 30's. If traded, he may net Texas a tremendous haul, but I hope the Brewers aren't the team paying it. Too much risk for a team that could be sunk if it goes badly.

the Scott Boras Training Institute I'm sure Attanasio has season tickets :-) Wouldn't Boras be better off having Morales sign with an indy league team and play his way into game shape there? Boras is best off getting his clients the highest paycheck immediately. Boras' clients aren't always best off with the way he works, but Boras is all about getting the most money possible.

Fondy, Nelson was obviously jittery due to the situation. He seemed to be most comfortable with his slider, which looked wicked. He also had good velocity on his fastball. However, he was erratic, with some pitches that missed very, very badly. I'm not worried, and overall he looked good, but that's probably what the radio announcers were talking about. This will probably help Nelson's development. He's pitched well at AAA, got a start in the majors and pitched pretty well there, and now he can go back down with that experience under his belt. If he wasn't already there, this outing has to position him as the #1 guy to take over when someone hits the DL, so he will be back in the majors this season, and this one game should build up his confidence for when he's back up. While it's fun to talk about, no one from our MLB rotation will be traded this season unless the team completely bombs over the next month and a half. That trade will probably happen this offseason. Until then, it's been our rotation that has us in first place, and we've now seen our "#6 starter" get some MLB action. Starting pitching is one area where we have some depth, and it's likely we'll need to see that depth as someone is probably going to hit the DL at some point in the season. As a side note, this probably solidifies the notion that Thornburg is at best the third option to fill a spot in the rotation. He'll probably spend at least this year and next in the bullpen. I see the Brewers grooming him as a future closer rather than a future starter, so I think his chance at being a starting pitcher for the Brewers is looking pretty slim. That's one big "ripple effect" of the Garza signing, as Thornburg likely would've been the #5 starter had that signing not occurred. It has probably helped us this year, but I sure wanted to see what Thornburg could've done as a starter.

I agree with you that I don't want to trade Nelson, but I also don't think Thornburg is cemented into the rotation as our future closer, or even a reliever right now. Both Melvin and Roenicke have said repeatedly that he would likely be given a shot to start again in the future, but right now he is helping the team out the most as a reliever. His success there doesn't mean he's automatically going to stay there. I agree, but if we went with the proposed trade, we would be returning our starting five from this year, along with Pederson in the OF and no Nelson in the minors. That trade was "sold" as "This could be a legit 2 year run at World Series competitiveness." In that light, Thornburg would almost certainly be used as a late inning reliever. So, after two full seasons in late inning relief, when we lose Gallardo, Lohse and Estrada to free agency after this 2-year run, Thornburg could already be considered the closer. At the very least, he would be two years removed from having been a starter. I don't think this is the best idea, but it is likely how it would play out if we traded our best prospect right now in order to go for it over the two-year window (this year and next) in which we have the current starting rotation. You see it that way. Ryu was a Prospect they went out and signed. Young Controlled Pitching is a hot commodity that all teams covet. Just because LA bought Grienke that means they only go for buying their pitching? They can afford to buy the best 1yr/2yr available pitcher on the market yes(Haren) but it's patchwork that has trouble written all over it when it blows up in their face. My scenario is giving LA a longer termed solution that allows them to turn their attention elsewhere. They don't have a roster spot for Pederson and he's wasting valuable playing time/value sitting in AAA. Now, Both Nelson and Pederson are prospects. It's safe to assume Nelson will get his ML playing time sooner than Pederson. A successful begin to his career could wipe out what is an equal value in thought trade currently. Now, Nelson ends up staying on the team and LA is left signing Gallardo to a 2-3year 50-65mil deal after this season. And still don't have a solution to the Pederson problem. Their back end of the rotation is worse next 3years while costing 50+mil. Nelson becomes the one that got away. That's why if I'm the Brewers I trade away one of the guys from the current MLB roster and not Nelson. The Dodgers would very likely prefer "proven" to add to their staff right now, and the Brewers would be foolish to trade away a good MLB-ready guy who they control for six more years in order to hold onto Gallardo, Lohse and Estrada for a two-year window. The idea to me was to Play Davis in RF Davis can't play RF. He can't even play 1B. He is either a LF or a DH. Myers is having a slumpish start thus far on this season. But he's still an elite talent. If the thought is that the Rays are down this season and therefore willing to trade away veteran players, they certainly aren't going to platoon/bench one of their best young players. That's the perfect opportunity to let him play for the experience. If Davis becomes a .270/.345 27-35HR DH/backup OF wouldn't that be good enough? The things Davis was knocked on as a Prospect(speed/arm) don't apply if he's being used at DH. I believe Davis will improve as the season goes on and he's going to have a Corey Hart like slash line for his career. Wouldn't you trade Zobrist's 1+years left contract for 4+ years of that with a RP to boot? No one knows what Davis will become, and if the Rays trade Zobrist, they will be able to get a better deal than Davis (who you already want to trade even though you argue that you think he's going to put up All Star numbers) and a RP who may never put it together to have a MLB career. Now, if Davis really is going to be a .900 OPS guy, wouldn't we be far better off just letting him play through his struggles this year and then get five All Star seasons out of him. Or, if we're going to trade him, shouldn't we wait for one of those 35 HR seasons, when we could trade him for anyone in the league? There really aren't many players in the league who put up the numbers you're suggesting that Davis will achieve. If you truly believe he's that guy, then why on earth would you trade him away and then trade our best pitching prospect for another OF to replace Davis?