MNBrew

They talk about Youkilis to 3B because that's what he came up as. Now they have Lowell there. But landing Big Tex or another stronger 1B would allow them to move Youkilis BACK to 3B. A different trade I wouldn't mind happening is Bill Hall for Mike Lowell IF Lowell's healthy. Boston would need to throw in a respectable pitcher to offset the salary dumped on the Brewers. Then again, Lowell's older with an injury history and Hall just had Lasik, so maybe that deal's better left undone, too. I just don't see enough good reason to trade Hardy this winter. I'm not convinced yet Escobar will be the future SS, although I'd sure love to see it. I'd prefer to keep the SS depth for now, eventually move Hardy to 3B, and, if need be, trade Fielder for serious (pitching!) talent.

SF is also known for trading for or throwing out big money to bigger name or established players, even in the past couple offseasons when their pennant chances seemingly haven't been so great. Molina, Rowand, Zito, Johnson, Roberts, Matt Morris, Klesko, Steve Finley... Same ownership, same GM.

Small sample, but Guardado wasn't very good after getting traded to MN, a place he's quite comfortable. The other significant closer available and not yet mentioned is John Smoltz. Then again, he's also one of the best, proven, possibly reasonably priced starters available, too. I'd put on a good push for Smoltz and then come as close as possible to matching Hoffman's price. Pipe dream? Perhaps. But with the slow market, it's still early and it's important to aim high.

I think Cameron's worth at least the same as each of those guys except maybe Buchholz. Hardy's a top SS, which should net Buchholz plus any other of those players. A different Boston slant would be to trade Fielder for Ellsbury & Buchholz, plus Lowell gets included if the Brewers add Bill Hall. (I still think I'd rather see what the Brewers could get for Fielder from Seattle (tons of strong young pitching) or the Angels (Santana/Saunders, maybe both, plus something more).

You're right, Clancy, CF ain't broke. However, the reason why you'd make these Cameron & Winn trades -- is that the offensive issues that dogged the team all last year haven't been addressed at all yet. Thanks, too, for bringing up Winn batting #2. This seems improved from '08: 1. Weeks 2. Winn 3. Braun 4. Fielder 5. Hart 6. Hardy 7. Hall/Lamb 8. Kendall 9. P (multiple edits for brevity)

There's a rumbling (LINK) that IF the Giants were to sign Manny Ramirez (odds still seem long), that they'd likely look to move one of their other OFs. Having a bit of fun with the idea. I think that Brewers should make a move for Randy Winn. Winn doesn't have the same power or quite the RBIs as Cameron, but he's a switch hitter, a very solid BA & OBP guy, avg. 40+ 2Bs the past 4 years, still has very good speed (25/2 in SB/CS in '08). Winn does have a slightly better career fielding % than Cameron. Past 4 years OBP, SLG, & BA (quick, slightly rounded figuring but w/ a calculator): Cameron: .339, .464, .255 Winn: .350, .442, .294 Career OBP, SLG, & BA (mlb.com): Cameron: .340, .448, .250 Winn: .347, .425, .288 Bottom line: There's no significant drop-off from Cameron to Winn, and Winn is a clear upgrade especially where the Brewers are looking to improve (R/L, BA, contact hitter, and a little better OBP). Winn's also 2 years younger & $1.75M cheaper than Cameron in '09. I don't dislike Cameron. I'm simply brainstorming ways the Brewers might address their offensive weaknesses. Rip away... (multiple edits for brevity)

For the number of decent players available in FA and others who could possibly be available in trade, it's really been a maddeningly quiet offseason for many, many teams so far, not just the Brewers. Even several traditionally big spenders have been fairly quiet. The Dodgers have only re-signed their own FAs plus Mark Loretta. The Angels have lost two stud FAs and only signed Fuentes to fill one of those two holes. The Red Sox have only traded Coco Crisp for a middle reliever from KC. I'm frustrated, too. But the whole market's moving slowly and this stuff just takes time. I'd much prefer Melvin not make a move at all than make a stupid move.

The fact is, fielding stats beyond chances, PO, assists, and (for the most part) errors are the most highly subjective of any in baseball. Due to that fact, they are also the least reliable. They evolved last, also, because it was the one area not measured in anything other than basic detail. So the stats mongers tried to come up with measurements that would make fielding as quantifiable as hitting & pitching. Now there are numbers. How telling they are depends on the extent to which you take them as gospel. When it comes to this realm, I'm going to rely tons more on what scouts, team officials, and the "simple" stats say. Everything we've ever heard in that context is that Hardy is a stud defensive SS. All the rest of it IMHO isn't worth putting much more than an ounce of stock in. Many of you will disagree and several will rip. That's the nature of these forums. But it won't change my mind.

I'm not suggesting Griffey is necessarily a much better player than Cameron. He has his plusses, too, though. Last year he hit 18 HRs & 71 RBIs in 490 ABs. While that's not All-Star material, that's also not 4th OF material. He bats lefty, strikes out about 40% less than Cameron, walks more, and has a better OBP. Their OPS difference was only about 20 pts. in Cameron's favor -- not a huge difference. Neither guy is a long-term solution. My point is this: If DM is looking to alter some of the makeup/profile of the club given its well-documented shortcomings (overly righty, low OBP, high Ks) and without screwing up its long-term plan, trading Cameron and signing Griffey could be a decent way to accomplish that and possibly free up a small bit of payroll space in doing so.

My point on Griffey was as a replacement for Cameron. I would not at all advocate replacing Hart with Griffey.

THIS is the link from a Seattle writer that talked again in pretty good detail about how the Brewers' & Mariners' needs & strengths match up pretty well. He talks about Fielder to Seattle and the Brewers being definitely interested in Morrow and other pitchers. Even though it'd throw any remaining R/L balance out the window, to me it's worth considering. If the Crew were to make some other moves (trading Cameron & signing Griffey or Abreu; plus some pitching moves like trading Suppan, signing Sheets or Smoltz, signing Fuentes or another proven closer), the Crew could field something like this: OF: Braun, Hart, Griffey/Abreu IF: Hardy (3B - or Hart/Lamb, which excites me less), Escobar (SS - or Hardy), Weeks, & Gamel/Nelson (1B) C: Kendall Offhand I'm not totally sure if there's a net gain in OPS or runs scored, but it does change the makeup, should keep things quite competitive, and also net us a much deeper & improved pitching situation (not necessarily from the '08 season but at least from the immediate status quo). Getting back to the thread topic, I'm getting redundant but at least with a few different ideas: Keep Hart & look for ways to move other pieces around to make an overall improvement in the team.

No thanks on Perez. He's a younger version of Cameron w/ 4 exceptions: higher BA (and therefore OBP), much less power, he's a switch hitter, and mostly unproven at the big-league level. He's a speedy, defensively solid AAA OF who strikes out a ton. Yuck. No doubt Hart regressed the last 2 months of '08. But he's a solid, 5-tool, team-first, All-Star RF. Moving him would amount to trading one of our top 4 offensive players, let alone doing so for less than optimal value. Melvin is usually quite good about not "selling low." Including an A-level catching prospect (esp. the highly-plus bat of Salome) would only compound the risk of the deal proposed above, and would amount to a huge potential fleecing by Tampa (not of Tampa). I really think Melvin wouldn't -- and shouldn't -- trade Hart or make this deal. I'd much rather see the Brewers explore the Cameron/Yankees trade and sign Ken Griffey to a slightly lower, one-year, Kendall-type (2nd yr. vesting option) contract. That move plus dumping Suppan and paying up to half his contract would allow the Brewers to make a hard push for Smoltz (please yes!) or Sheets, plus Fuentes, all of which would help negate the losses this winter and still stand to put them in a good position to contend in '09.

As much as I continue to dislike everything about the Yankees, this is also a cruel reminder that the "take the draft picks" mentality is not the sure thing so many folks counted on it to be, either. I don't ever care to bank on the picks. Be careful what you wish for... What I don't understand is why, after the year CC had last year, or how Teixeira rates higher. This should actually cost the Yankees a future #1 pick and or the protected #1 they have this year -- not that anything will change, but it does further point to the injustice of it. I sure hope every other team votes for a change in the procedures (at least for what elements aren't subject to collective bargaining) and eliminate as much as possible the Yankees' ability to monopolize in this way. The only three entities that must like this are 1) the Yankees, their media, & fan base; 2) the players' union; and 3) ESPN. All that said, not one game has been played yet, and there's not a single 25-man roster out there that's willing to hand the Yankees their free pass to the Series. I, for one, will continue to root as strongly as always for a few strategic injuries and a nice ugly collapse like they had last year.

Didn't Melvin also pull in Doug Davis, Dan Kolb, & Brady Clark off waivers? As much as some folks love to deride him on this site, Clark was a pretty solid & respectable pickup -- and even if he was only average, he was still a good improvement over Alex Sanchez. And Kolb was nothing short of stellar his 1st stint in BrewTown (low K-rate in his 2nd year notwithstanding). Getting Brian Shouse for Rule V uber-bust Enrique Cruz was sheer genius. Getting Guillermo Mota for Estrada was seen as a garbage-for-garbage deal, mainly a swap of contracts, but other than his super crappy month-plus, Mota was pretty darn good. I'd actually go for re-signing him for $1.5-2M if he'd take the deal. Getting Carlos Villanueva for two bad pitchers who otherwise would've been cut (Wayne Franklin, who showed some potential at one point, and Leo Estrella, who did not) was perhaps Melvin's great future-speculative move of his Brewers tenure. Turning Jorge De La Rose around for Tony Graffanino was brilliant. Getting Tomo Ohka, though unspectacular, for Junior Spivey while Spivey still had value, was a solid move, in part because it helped add Rickie Weeks to the roster -- which was also a good move at the time and would look even better if he'd shown significant progress in fulfilling the potential of his bat. Letting Jeff Cirillo talk him into a tryout was brilliant, too, but mainly thanks to Cirillo. I'll also posit that NOT bringing back Cirillo, either after '06 or for '08, was not a great decision, not to mention quite disappointing -- the former especially because it meant having to deal with 2 years of Craig Counsell, who, in spite of his LH bat, for the most part added nothing, which certainly wouldn't've been the case with Cirillo. And while it'd be pointing out the elephant in the room, no one else has mentioned it yet (I don't think).... Getting Ace Starter CC Sabathia and ending the playoff drought for some high-end prospects, while the long-term return for Cleveland can't be judged for some time, was clearly the single best trade Melvin may ever have made. Sure, Todd Ritchie was a signing bust, but he didn't cost much and was easy to dump. And Javier Valentin would've been a much better alternative than Chad Moeller or the last year of Damian Miller (still a good signing at the time), but in all that wasn't a very painful move (not that Jason Conti gave us anything at all except a worse K-rate than Cameron). But in general I have a lot of faith in Melvin's moves. So if he doesn't feel he was getting offered decent value in return for Mike Cameron (another solid signing, all things considered), I have total trust in his choosing NOT to pull the trigger.

Interpreting Olney's report, 5 yrs. & $90M = $18M/yr. Down by a third = $12M/yr. Sounds like a K-Rod deal (3 yrs, $37M) is the best he could hope for, and even that may be dropping. I'm still not sure I do that deal, especially if we could land Smoltz &/or Johnson for ~$8M each. That's probably a pipe dream, but the positive veteran influence/mentor factor could be outstanding, which has definite appeal. Sheets returning for a year has distinct appeal, too, compared to Garland and some of the other potential Suppan types out there. Lowe generally doesn't excite me that much. On the other hand, it's hard to feel like I know as much about how he's pitching the past few years because he's played on the West Coast.

Last season he hit .276 with 26 HR, 94 RBI, 46 2B, 23 SBs & only 3 CS, an .853 OPS (.356 OBP, .497 SLG), plus he won a Gold Glove. Yeah, he's good & cheap. But what makes you think it might not take much to pry him away from Pittsburgh? In another thread, you were also suggesting that maybe Hart & some garbage would get us Matt Cain. Might get us Jonathan Cain (50+ year old keyboard guy from Journey). Seriously, you seem to be on a run of highly overestimating other teams' willingness to move their good players, or at least underestimating what they'd want in return.

You hit it right on the nose! Melvin's very, very good about knowing when NOT to sell low on someone.

This deal may turn out to be nothing, in which case, so what? It didn't cost us any real jing or a roster spot. Nixon could make the team, have some success, and turn into the '09 lefty version of Gabe Kapler from '08 (although I wish they'd re-sign Kapler, too!). Or Nixon might not make it and would play at Nashville. No harm, no foul. The way I see it, Nixon stands to be >>>>>>>>>Counsell as a lefty bat coming off the bench if he makes the team.

Turn it around. If Cabrera's not good enough in exchange for an above average, multiple Gold Glove CF with proven power, run production, & speed, then just throw in Igawa to spice it up and get it done. The point is, if you need to be impressed to even begin considering giving the deal serious thought, the addition of meaningless spare parts doesn't get you any closer to being impressed. Haven't the Giants said they're not looking to move Matt Cain? If so, then why would adding our junk to the deal make them any more motivated?

Nelson should be a better hitter than Gabe Gross, for example, but Nelson as our 4th OF would give me nightmares. He's still really a 1B. He's played enough to get by as a corner OF but he's a 5th/6th OF and burly utility guy and pinch hitter more than a 4th OF. I'd take Gabe Kapler over Nelson to be the 4th OF every day of the week & twice on Sundays. I actually like Nelson a lot for what he showed at AAA this year and what he could become . . . and if Fielder turns into a deal for serious pitching, then maybe that means he's the starting 1B, at which I think he'd become at least respectable and serviceable.

see: Vizquel, Omarsee also: Smith, Ozzie For Ozzie's first 7 seasons, he was all glove & no bat. He became a decent-enough #8 hitter later in his career. Unnecessary aside but relevant still to this discussion: If Smith were our SS today, many around these parts would be tearing him down and attempting to convince the other half of us that he's not really good on account of his horrible power and his career .665 OPS. My point: Even if Escobar only has an Ozzie Smith-like major league bat, if he's that much of a "plus" fielder, then he's still extremely worth the roster spot and you find a way to keep both him & Hardy in the daily lineup.

Hardy was described as pretty much Major League-ready defensively at the time the Brewers drafted him. That's one of the things Yount raved about to the Brewers' scouting staff. The question was whether or not his bat would come around. That remained a legit question even through his first year or so in the bigs.

I keep going back & forth on this Cameron-Cabrera thing. In general I like the idea but I do hate the idea of the Brewers getting the short end of any deal baseball-wise, and this has high potential for that. On the other hand, if it enables them to make another move, the result of which is potentially a longer-term, much more positive situation, then you can't just judge the trade by the trade itself -- rather, judge the trade by itself AND the moves it enables. Is the sum total a collective step up than the previous situation? I like And That's suggestion of Cameron netting Fuentes + Cabrera & Igawa. That's a net positive return. Two positions covered & possibly a 3rd (Igawa) for the same net money that would've covered CF alone, and for the roughly the same dollars getting a better overall roster? Sign me up.

Let me get this straight. Between the (hopefully slightly expanded) eventual Yankees swap and this Rolen/Suppan proposal... Brewers add ~$20M in: Melky Cabrera for CF (~$2.5M in 1st arby year) Kei Igawa (possibly) for the P staff ($4M) possible young Yankees pitcher ($500K) Scott Rolen for 3B ($13M avg.) Brewers lose ~$30M in: Mike Cameron ($10M) Bill Hall ($7.5M avg.) Jeff Suppan ($12M) And as a result: - 3B is improved -- should at least be a neutral entity if not a positive change (assuming (BIG "IF") Rolen's healthy), plus Rolen can pass on sage advice & misc. tips to Mat Gamel (like how to have two "t"s at the end of a first name?); - CF loses some pop and some defense but gains contact and more future potential; - Our new utility IF (whomever it will be) won't cost nearly as much as Hall; - Suppan's replacement can't be much worse but could easily perform at Suppan-like levels for a fraction of the cost; - AND the Brewers gain payroll flexibility to add to the P staff and replace Hall without touching any of the potenially available dollars that might've gone to CC (yes, Doug, I'll take Randy Johnson for $6-8M, please!). Sign me up!

In answer to the question posed in the title of the thread... I sure hope so! And wouldn't it be fun if that turned out to be the case!