List of Brewers making more than $5M next year per BF.net and my arby guessing: Greinke 13.5M Rodriguez 10M? Weeks 10M Wolf 9.5M Hart 9M Braun 6M Ramirez 6M Gallardo 5.5M Marcum 5M+? Most here believe we need more pitching (and that you always need more pitching). So let's take starting pitchers off the list. Now we have: Rodriguez, Weeks, Hart, Braun, Ramirez We aren't trading A-Ram, Weeks, or Braun. That leaves Rodriguez and Hart as the "expensive" players to trade to reduce payroll. Since no one seemed interested in K-Rod in the open market, I'm not sure there would be many trading partners that would make a trade giving us payroll flexibility. So it's less about wanting to trade Hart and more of Hart being the best piece to trade with the combination of lowering payroll, actually getting something back in the trade, and being expendable on the team. He's not really expendable but seems so compared to Braun (HoF talent) and Weeks (plays a position with less talented players).