I hope i didnt make it too much of an opinion piece this month Even so, you had to talk about it, and it's not an outrageous opinion anyway, especially from the viewpoint of looking at the farm system. Joe is no prospect---he's 32 years old. But it says quite a bit about the man that the Brewers were willing to bring him up over 100 guys younger than him when Rickie Weeks went down. Thought this was a bit of a non sequitur, since the fact that there are 100 younger players has little to do with which ones are possible options to contribute right now. To pose a question, what would the team be like now if Melvin had traded Carlos Villanueva and Yovani Gallardo for Bob Wickman in 2005? Ouch. You know what would really suck (pardon the doomsday glasses)? If we traded Inman, Thatcher, and Garrison to finish in 2nd place. Rickie could have easily just ridden pine, or hit the dl for another month. To be honest, I don't see how this was an option at all. Going on the DL is one thing, but if he's able to play, sitting the bench for 2 months does him zero benefit. He needs to play every day, whether that's here or Nashville, and if it breaks friends up, so be it.