monty57

So, Cliff Lee was traded from Cleveland to Philly and subsequently traded from Philly to Seattle to clear salary room after Philly traded Drabek and Taylor (who was later traded for Brett Wallace, who was part of the deal bringing free-agent-to-be-but-later-signed-long-term Matt Holliday from Oakland to St. Louis) to Toronto for Roy Halladay, who is really the pitcher Philly wanted when they "settled" for Cliff Lee, who after recently being traded to Seattle was later traded to to Texas for a group of prospects including Smoak, who many in Milwaukee wanted in return for Fielder. At least it wasn't confusing. What's next, Cliff Lee getting traded to Cleveland?

Edmonds is exactly the type of player you want to keep. A professional who can help some of the young guys and emerging ones. he's been there before and can help the young players who haven't. I gues it could be argued that Edmonds is helping Gomez by keeping him on the bench, but I'd think that Gomez would be helped much more by actually playing more than once a week. As I said earlier, Gomez could very well be a bust, but I'd like to see him get extended playing time, with the "sink or swim" ultimatum on plate discipline. As I feared, we are now having a mild winning streak just before trade deadline, which is going to get the front office thinking we're playoff contenders. If we win one more against Cincy, I wouldn't be surprised if instead of trading Hart, Fielder, Bush, Edmonds, etc we'll trade guys like Katin and Dillard to "upgrade" our MLB team for a playoff push. At the very least, Melvin will decide that we absolutely need to get a MLB pitcher in return for Hart or Fielder, and we'll end up taking some shmoe with no upside in return just so we can "compete" this year.

But both of them are going to be under team control for a relatively cheap price for the prime of their careers, which is nice.

While definitely a solid prospect, Doubront is another guy with mid-rotation ceiling - which in my mind is all Hart is worth. Personally, I wouldn't give up any of Wheeler, Belt, Doubront, etc. for Hart because I don't think he's better than an .800-.820 OPS hitter, but we all have different opinions. I'm with you, which is why it's painful for me to think that Melvin may turn down decent pitching in a seemingly futile effort to convince other GM's that Hart is worth a top-of-the-rotation arm. I'd be happy to trade Hart for a near-MLB-ready #3-ish SP. Then we could trade Prince for a bunch of talent that doesn't have to be MLB ready. And if Gamel is either not putting in the work to become a better defensive 3B or is putting in the work but not capable of being a better 3B then they have to move him to RF. Which means another year in the minors learning to play the OF, which means he won't be in the majors until 2012. While I agree it would take some time, I would think that if they'd move him now so he can play the rest of this season in RF, he should be capable of playing the position next year for the Brewers. I wouldn't think it would take him a year and a half to learn RF. That said, I'm not against trading him, but we do have to draw the line somewhere, as we can't trade all of our position players to get starting pitchers.

Kyle Drabek, Brett Wallace and Michael Taylor were all moved within the last year as parts of the Halladay trade. Halladay's haul was two top 30 picks and one at 81 and he has been in the elite of of pitchers over the last few years. Aren't we confusing Holliday/Halladay? I believe Wallace and Clayton Mortenson were traded from St. Louis for Matt Holliday, while Drabek and Taylor were part of the Roy Halladay deal. The Cardinals traded a lot of prospects in shooting for the playoffs last season. In addition to landing Holliday, they also traded some talent to get DeRosa. Another recent deal, but I don't remember the players involved, was Cliff Lee being traded from Cleveland to the Phillies last season. Of course, the much referenced Teixiera deals weren't that many years ago. There aren't that many deals because there aren't that many elite players in the league, so there are only a couple every year on the block. Lee and Haren have already been traded, and there have been a few injuries, so Melvin is definitely holding some cards with two of the top bats on the market. Just a side note, but the Cardinals are probably a pretty good case study on running a franchise, as when they had the playoffs in sight, they traded prospects, when they have a "core player" like Pujols/Holliday/Carpenter, they lock them up long term, and when they've got a tradeable player they're not going to lock up, they do things like trading J.D. Drew for young pitchers Wainwright and Marquis. Of course they make mistakes as well, but there's a reason they've continually kicked the Cubs' butts for about 100 years.

I had a post made up that got eaten by Yuku, so I'll recap. I assumed $5MM in pre-arby raises and option buyouts, making up for the difference in the $35MM on the books and assumed $80MM budget (no idea if that's what it'll be, but it's my guess). That's how I came up with around $40MM to spend. I put $4.5MM for Weeks based on his current $2.75MM salary. He definitely will deserve more, but I think arby takes the previous year's salary heavily into consideration. I also hope they are able to work an extension. I don't care if they have Lawrie, as they'll find a spot for the two of them on the MLB roster. Weeks is a good player who should be able to be signed to a reasonable contract. He has also proven to be the main catalyst for this offense. The Brewers can use players like that. The fact that he's not in trade talks, while Fielder and Hart are leads me to believe they will at least try to extend him. I purposely put Gomez low, as I don't know what they'll do with him. Are they willing to pay $2.0MM for a pinch runner/defensive replacement? They did it with Gerut this season, and will probably do it with Gomez next year, but I vindictively kept his 2011 salary low. He is only playing about 20% of the time, so maybe he won't get a big raise. I can't believe I fogot Loe!! He is one of the few bright spots on the 2010 team, and should definitely be an inexpensive part of the 2011 bullpen.

I really hope the Brewers don't get to a point that they have to trade away their best players, whose values far outweigh their contracts. The Brewers have had some bad contracts, and it looks like we're getting into the phase where we'll continually have to trade good players before they hit free agency, but at least we haven't had to trade away good players signed to good contracts while they were still under team control for several years. It would sure suck to have to trade away Yo or Braun next year because we were losing money and had bad contracts we couldn't get rid of. It would be even worse if Melvin settled for what would seem to be far less value than Yo/Braun is worth, and we were told "I know Braun was good, but we got Juan Pierre back, and he's played on some playoff teams in the past, so he knows how to win. With his MLB experience, he'll fit right in and we won't miss a beat in LF." On top of bad planning that forced them to trade a good, underpaid player, what gets me is the seeming desire for a guy with MLB experience in order to placate the fanbase. I've heard those rumblings about the Fielder/Hart situations... we need someone with MLB experience in return. I'd rather they just get the best players/talent back. A few years of MLB experience simply means we'll have him a few less years, and he'll get expensive sooner.

I'd guess that whatever the Brewers offer will only be used by Boras to help him in free agency. For instance, let's say the Brewers offer your example of 5 years, $125MM ($25MM / year A-Rod money!!). With this, Boras now has ammunition to use in free agent talks with the Brewers and other teams. Prince only has one arby season left, and with a $25MM/year offer hanging in the air, Boras would shoot for around $20MM in arby (I don't know what the rules are, but I'd guess it would be hard for the Brewers to debate his worth if they already offered him $25MM/year). Then, he goes into free agency, and the first thing he does is calls the usual big-market suspects and lets them know that Fielder has already been offered a huge contract. If the Brewers want in, they've already shown their hand as to what they're willing to pay, so Boras has that over them. I think the Brewers already went in trying to negotiate in good faith, and Boras threw it back in their face. In my mind, there is no chance of the Brewers signing Fielder prior to his testing free agency. I have been a proponent of extending Fielder since his rookie season. Once Boras made the $200MM comment, I changed my mind. Now he needs to be traded, because he is far too good to let him walk away for draft picks. If the Brewers were front runners for the playoffs (like the A's when they let Giambi walk), then I may think differently, but that's not the case.

From Brewerfan's salary page (and a couple from memory), the salaries we're losing: Suppan $12.5MM Hall $7.5MM (?? I think it's somewhere around this) Dave Bush $4.215MM Craig Counsell $2.1MM Doug Davis $4.25MM (has $6.5MM option I doubt they exercise) Jim Edmonds $0.85MM Jody Gerut $2.0MM (has a year of arby left, but doubt he's offered) Trevor Hoffman $7.5MM Joe Inglett $0.416MM Dave Riske $4.5MM (option for $4.5MM I doubt they exercise) Gregg Zaun $1.9MM (option for $2.25MM I doubt they exercise) So that's $47.731 coming off the books We also are likely to trade: Prince Fielder $10.5MM (one year of arby left) Corey Hart $4.8MM (one year of arby left) For another $15.3MM freed up There is also the question mark of Carlos Gomez, currently getting paid $1.1MM with three years of arby left, but I won't include him here. That's $63,031,000 of current salaries that probably won't be on the Brewers' books next year. Now, barring other trades, here's what we'll have on the roster: SP: Yo Gallardo $3.25MM Randy Wolf $9.5MM Manny Parra est. $2.0MM (year one arby) Chris Narveson $0.416MM Relievers John Axford $0.40 Zach Braddock $0.40 Todd Coffey est $3.00 (third year of arby, currently $2.025MM) LaTroy Hawkins $4.00MM Carlos Villanueva est $1.75MM (year two of arby, currently $0.95MM) C: George Kottaras $0.408MM C: Jon Lucroy $0.40MM 3B: Casey McGehee $0.427MM SS: Alcides Escober $0.405MM 2B: Rickie Weeks est $4.5MM (year three of arby, currently $2.75MM) CF: Lorenzo Cain $0.40MM LF: Ryan Braun $4.0MM 4th OF Carlos Gomez $1.25MM (2nd of 4 years of arby, currently at $1.1MM I'd guess we have around $35,256,000 under contract, with a need for a RF, 1B, 3-4 bench spots, 2-3 relievers and 1-3 SP (depending on how much we're counting on Narveson and Parra in the rotation). The only rookie I have listed above is Cain. We could probably fill our bullpen and some of the bench spots with minor leaguers, and could possibly bring Rivas or Rogers up to start and Gamel up for RF/1B. It's also likely that we will fill some of the 1B, RF, SP positions when/if Hart & Fielder are traded. The way I look at it, depending on what we get back in the Hart/Fielder trades, we should have around $40,000,000 to find some combination of 1B/RF/SP and some bench help. Money is not going to be a problem... we just need some smart GMing. The free cash, along with Hart, Fielder and Weeks being free agents after next season, is why I think the next eight months or so will be extremely important for the future of the Brewers.

If Haren's no-trade clause limited the Diamondbacks in trade negotiations, the D-Backs should let the public know this for PR reasons (i.e. "We had a better deal on the table, but Haren vetoed it"). However, they had no need to trade Haren, so they must have thought this was a good offer or they simply could have held onto him. I'll admit that I don't know much about the prospects in the trade, and am going off of some opinions I have read more than anything. I will say that if we traded Yo right now for a decent-but-far-from-great SP entering arby, a AAA reliever, a AA starter and a PTBNL, the PTBNL had better be awful good. If our GM justified the trade by saying "the guy we got has a good winning percentage," I'd be pretty upset. Haren's a little more expensive than Yo, but he's also accomplished more in his career, so I'd guess value-wise they're similar. If this is truly what top of the rotation starters are worth, then I think we should have no problem trading Fielder and Hart for numerous top of the rotation starters. I guess this shows that if you look hard enough, you can find some GM that is willing to be swindled.

When did Parra or Bush ever come close to that pitching in the NL where the pitchers bat? Saunders pitches to contact Could part of the reason Parra and Bush haven't come close to that is if someone on the Brewers pitches to contact our Swiss cheese defense would turn a 17-7/ 3.41 ERA / 1.212 WHIP into a 4.50 ERA / 1.6 WHIP season? Unfortunately, as long as our defense remains intact, we need high K, low BB guys. In other words, we need the guys that are too expensive for us to go after in FA. That's why I liked Haren, he fits our needs while being much cheaper than we'd find on the FA market and under control for three more seasons. Now I guess I'll hold out hope that we can somehow land Vazquez in free agency, as he fits the bill. Of course, we could decide to forego some offense for some defense, but that wouldn't be the Brewers' style.

if Axford leaves, i'd love to give the chance to Braddock. i mean, if he can handle it, it'd sure be awesome to have a young closer who is cheap and under team control for a lot more years:) You mean if Axford is traded it would be nice to replace him with someone like Axford... can handle it, is cheap and under control for a lot more years. Right now we have Axford and Braddock (and others), so I'd just as soon keep a young, cheap bullpen and spend money elsewhere. As guys make it through the minors, and we are able to replace an overvalued, more expensive Axford for a younger, cheaper version, then I'd look at trades.

Edmonds is a good LH bat who can also go out and play decent defense when asked. He has some value, so a playoff contending team in need of his skillset would give us something in return. His injury limits his value, but we someone like Butler, or maybe even a slightly higher rated prospect (Edmonds is better than Gross) should be attainable. Plus I believe Edmonds has some bonuses worked into his contract, so we'd save some money by trading him. With waning fan interest, we could probably use some salary relief this season. Katin is sitting in AAA waiting for a 40 man spot to open up. And what better time than this season to see if he can indeed hit MLB pitching. I think a guy like Katin could spur some interest in fans. He may not get on base as much as some would like, but he has the "excitement" tools... power at the plate and a strong arm in RF. Katin needs a shot to see if he's someone we'd want on the roster in 2011, even if it's as a RH power bat off the bench. MNBrew, I'm with you that I don't expect much from Gomez. However, my worry is that the Brewers will go into next season with question marks on Gomez, and retain him due to his potential. They should give him a "sink or swim" ultimatum, and let him play with the knowledge that if he doesn't improve his plate discipline this season, then in 2011 he will be in AAA or sitting on the bench as a pinch runner. Honestly, I wouldn't care if he was sent to AAA in favor of Cain, but if he has any chance of helping us in the future, he needs to play. The Edmonds story is nice, and he is playing as well as we could have hoped, but he is not a part of the Brewers' future.

I've read that KC wants two pitching prospects for Greinke I read the same thing about Dan Haren. "Two pitching prospects" doesn't necessarily relate to two young MLB ready top of the rotation starters. Looking at the Haren deal (I agree with X that Melvin could easily have trumped the return in that deal), we could put a package together that could land Grienke if that were our target. Using Haren as a comp, we could potentially do a deal with Parra, one or two of our "#3/4 ceiling" A+/AA guys and a decent-but-not-elite bat. Also, if we are going for Grienke in a deal, there's no reason to include Gordon in the package. All that does is increase what we'd have to pay, as we have plenty of infielders in the majors and high minors. The big problem I'd have with trading for Grienke is that if he only has two years left on his contract, we would very likely be looking to trade him away after next season unless he'd sign an extension. Since I don't think we should be playing for 2011 (I think we could have a decent team, but we shouldn't risk the future to make a big push in 2011), we should target players with more seasons under team control. After all, that's the only reason we're talking about trading Prince Fielder, so why get ourselves back into the same saddle? If we could get him cheaply, then absolutely go for it. If it would cost too much, then it wouldn't make sense. As far as there being no reason for trading Fielder or Hart, I'm probably at the point that if Fielder or Hart aren't traded, I'll watch a lot less games the rest of the season, and really tune back in during the offseason. That's coming from someone who has probably watched 90% of the games over the past decade. The only buzz right now surrounding the Brewers (and keeping them in the news, leading to viewership) is the possibility of a trade. I've seen the lifeless, half-full stands and the Packers haven't even started to get back into the conversation. If the Brewers stand pat, I'd guess there will be many fans who decide they've watched this team lose for long enough and just stop coming to games and tuning in, which will hurt revenues this season, and kill advanced ticket sales for next season. A trade may not be a panacea, but at least it will spur some excitement and give people a reason to watch for a little while longer... at least every fifth day if we can get another pitcher who isn't likely to give up 10 runs in the first inning (I know our staff is better than it's shown, but that's the perception of many fans I talk with). I know Melvin can't say that we're giving up on the season, but if the front office keeps spouting that we're still in it, I think many fans just laugh at them and then get mad when we stand pat with the team that we've been watching lose more than win for a season and a half.

Hart's injury is another reason I'd like to see a deal done ASAP. Thankfully, it looks like Corey will be back in action in a day or two, but had that been a broken wrist, we could've just given up one of our best chances of getting some decent pitching. While Melvin needs to get the best deal possible, he does need to pull the trigger at some point. If a good deal is on the table, there's a lot of risk in waiting. Someone could get injured, or the other team could look elsewhere. I know there used to be a "gentleman's agreement" not to claim players going through waivers after deadline, but I don't know if that's the case anymore. Baseball is more business than it's ever been, and I can't see teams letting useful players slip by. That said, I think most players are put through waivers just to see who's claimed (then waivers is revoked) and who makes it through. I wouldn't just put blind faith in our players making it through waivers. It's much more practical to get a deal done prior to the trade deadline. It's somewhat worrisome that it's July 26 and Melvin hasn't even made a minor move (Edmonds, Counsell, Inglett, Bush, Hoffman).

Well, I guess I can stop dreaming about the Brewers somehow adding Haren. Really, if we could've gotten him for a good prospect, a couple of mid-tier prospects and Manny Parra, I'd have jumped all over it. Including his option, Haren is under contract for a relatively cheap price for 3.5 years. Essentially, the money coming off the payroll for Suppan would've covered Haren.

I know there are statistical measures that show Casey's terrible at 3B. However, I don't have a "please don't hit it to third" feeling when he's out there. I know he's not a great fielding 3B, but I don't think he's awful. Maybe watching the Brewers for the past few years has made me numb to bad defense, but I think Casey's defensive foibles are being overstated.

Thanks guys. On Delgado "He has a chance to become a durable No. 2-3 starter and could reach the big leagues in 2011." I think I'd be happy if we could get these two guys for Hart.

I don't know all of the players involved, but the Brewers would be the team giving up MLB players, and this season is over for them. The White Sox would be increasing their MLB talent with Fielder, McGehee and Bush replacing Beckham and Hudson. Colorado would also be increasing their MLB talent, getting a 2nd year player with tremendous upside and a proven MLB reliever for a couple of young guys. These young guys have potential, but aren't a big part of a Rockies playoff run this season. I don't know how likely a trade like this would be, but the main reason big trades don't happen mid season is that no one in a playoff hunt would be willing to give up on players who are helping get them to the playoffs. I don't see the White Sox or Rockies giving up talent that is going to help this season that isn't being replaced. If nothing else, it was a pretty well thought out trade idea. That said, a trade like this wouldn't have to be structured as a "three team deal." The Brewers / White Sox trade could occur now, and the Brewers / {other team} trade could happen this offseason. Let's say the Brewers trade Fielder, Bush and McGehee to the Sox for Hudson, Beckham and a low level prospect or two. Beckham could replace McGehee at 3B for the Brewers this season, and a strong 2nd half could increase his value in trade for the offseason. Or, it could validate that he is someone to hold onto, and we could trade Weeks or Gamel for pitching in the offseason.

trwi7 or Pingman, what type "stuff" do Beachy & Delgado have? I saw their numbers, which are very good, but any additional info would be great. Thanks

The 'We didn't think he had any value 3 months ago, and now we want too much for him" argument doesn't make any sense to me. If you went into the casino expecting to lose 100 bucks and walked out with a new car would you trade it for a nice motor scooter even up? After all, you didn't expect to come away with anything, a motor scooter is much better than losing 100 bucks If just recently I had seen someone pushing my "new car" along the side of the road after it had repeatedly broken down, I might just take that scooter. Hart has a sordid history of high "highs" and low "lows." He may have finally found "it," or he may simply be having a good half before stinking up the joint going forward. The notion that Hart has hinted that he would like the Brewers to offer an extension and yet they continue to shop him may show that Melvin is worried that Hart is simply riding a hot streak. Plus, I'd hardly think of the names being floated around in these rumors as "motor scooters." If some of these rumors are true, these players have a lot of value. Besides, I wasn't doing anything other than musing. A few months ago, we thought we had nothing out of Hart, and now we have something. I hope we're able to maximize the value of Hart, and with his streaky past, I think we maximize by trading now. If we have to "settle" for someone like Wade Davis, who is MLB-ready and probably has a floor of a #3/4 pitcher, I'm really happy. Trying to play hardball until someone gives up a young Roger Clemens is what will get phones slammed in your ear, leading us to be forced to settle for less than what is currently being offered. Melvin should do his best to play teams against each other and then take the best offer he can get. Let some other team take the risk of Hart having a weak second half.

So let's keep him while he's pre-arby and in his prime and then trade him in year 2 of arby, after he's established a reputation as a "proven closer" and is getting expensive. If he can rack up 30 or so saves a year for the next 3 or 4 years and is still hitting the mid-90's with his fastball at age 30/31, we will be able to bring in a pretty good haul in trade. At that time, some of our current A-Ballers will have proven that they won't make it as MLB starters, so they'll fit in well as cheap arms to replace Axford in the 'pen.

The less free-agent relievers we have to being in, the better! That says it pretty well. If we have say an $80MM payroll and around $78MM of that can be spent outside of the bullpen, it's a good thing. We need to be able to develop our bullpen arms, and with all the arms currently in the system, we should have a cheap bullpen for quite a while. Axford is great to have now and can be flipped in the future when the price tag goes up and other cheap young players are ready to fill in.

Delgado's a 20-year-old striking out more than one an inning in High-A, with a 4:1 K/BB ratio. If he's now in AA, he could possibly be MLB ready sometime next year. Definitely a nice young pitcher. Is Beachy a starter or reliever (6 starts in 27 appearances)? Another high K, low BB guy. I don't know anything about them other than a quick look at their stats, but they'd definitely look nice in our system. I just have to keep reminding myself that a few months ago many were calling for Hart to be DFA'd to save his salary this season, and I thought we'd give him away for nothing at season's end. Now people are saying that we need surefire #1 starting pitching prospects or no deal.

Because I couldn't figure out a way to get 4. Thanks for the laugh. Good job coming up with a great trade possibility. Getting Beckham in the trade would open up a lot of options. As your scenario points out, even if we want to go with Gamel at 3B and extend Weeks at 2B, we could trade the young, cheap, talented Beckham for pitching. Adding McGehee to the White Sox deal would make a lot of sense, as he is valueable enough to cement Beckham into the deal (it's already close without McGehee) and probably allow us to grab a high ceiling guy in the low minors. Oh, and we have Gamel ready in AAA, so McGehee is available for the right price.