First base down the road?

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

As for Gamel, if he shows himself to be at least decent defensively at 3B, it would be dumb to move him to 1B where you can usually stick anyone.

Yeah, that's the problem. He hasn't. He has 23 errors and counting this year.

[mkm13]

1st base is the easiest position to fill. I would not worry about finding a replacement for Prince. Worst case scenario cant Gamel can't handle 3rd, Hart can't handle center, and Gamel moves over to 1st. If not, it will not be overly difficult to find a decent one somewhere.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

1st base is the easiest position to fill. I would not worry about finding a replacement for Prince. Worst case scenario cant Gamel can't handle 3rd, Hart can't handle center, and Gamel moves over to 1st. If not, it will not be overly difficult to find a decent one somewhere.

First Base is indeed an easy position to fill, but the idea is to get a top shelf hitter there, and I think our best chance at that in 2009 is to put Gamel there while improving our team tremendously on the pitching front by trading Prince. There are other stop gap options, but for 2009, that would put our team in the best position to win.

 

You could argue that putting Gamel at 1B does not put us in the best position to win for 2010 and beyond because he has more value at 3B, so it depends on where the team decides to put it's priority. If Melvin feels the Brewers have a good enough team to "Go for it" next year, I would be willing to bet that Gamel will be our opening day 2009 starter at 1B.

 

If Prince is our opening day 2009 starter, our pitching could be in trouble because the only other option is to go out and overpay a Jeff Suppan type pitcher in free agency. I think a trade is the best option. Maybe Jeffress will be ready by mid 2009, but that is wishful thinking.