Cameron to Yankees yet? Latest: Brewers apparently talking to free-agent CF's (in case); post 147-ish

[Yeti73]

I think it is a little interesting that people were disappointed that we exercised the option, now they're disappointed that we may deal him. I think we know what Cam gets us. He is a good guy and seems to help in the clubhouse (unlike Melky). However, the dude was not very clutch at all. His fielding is in decline and I feel like his stats were padded by the irrelevant homerun. I can't remember a player with more meaninglessly timed homeruns. Melky has is an outstanding fielder. I'm for a Kennedy/Melky deal if someone can convince me that Melky's attitude is unlike Estrada's.

[bklynbrewcrew]

If we are looking to contend next yr we dont make this trade. Melky is a big step down from Cameron defensively and offensively its not even close. Melky is really no more than a 5th outfielder. Im also not a big fan of Kennedy but I would take him before I would take Cabrera.

[endaround]

I think it is a little interesting that people were disappointed that we exercised the option, now they're disappointed that we may deal him. I think we know what Cam gets us. He is a good guy and seems to help in the clubhouse (unlike Melky). However, the dude was not very clutch at all. His fielding is in decline and I feel like his stats were padded by the irrelevant homerun. I can't remember a player with more meaninglessly timed homeruns. Melky has is an outstanding fielder. I'm for a Kennedy/Melky deal if someone can convince me that Melky's attitude is unlike Estrada's.

 

Cameron with runners in scoring position: .245/.346/.443. I guess is you parse "clutch" close enough he might look bad.

[PilprinBuddha]

Kennedy and Melky would make me do it.

[Ennder]

If we are looking to contend next yr we dont make this trade. Melky is a big step down from Cameron defensively and offensively its not even close. Melky is really no more than a 5th outfielder. Im also not a big fan of Kennedy but I would take him before I would take Cabrera.

 

That really isn't true, he is an above average defensive CF and his career numbers suggest somewhere near league average offense at CF. He is certainly a step down from Cameron but he is not a 5th OF. Cabrera isn't the center piece of any deal though, he is a guy thrown in to give the Brewers a viable CF to replace Cameron. Not sure why people are keying in on him so much.

[endaround]

A few things make this whole thing questionable:

 

1) Its the NY Post. Second only to Boston papers in making up trade rumors. It doesn't mean its false, but it does mean that the source could easily be Art Vanderlay.

 

2) Cameron has some type of no trade protection. What it exactly is is uncertain, but it makes things more questionable.

 

3) The Yankees have refused to move pitching prospects before now. Given that Kennedy will be 24 and unlikely to be given a spot in the Yankee rotation, but it seems strange that Cameron on a one year contract will be the one that makes Cashman move one of his babies.

 

That said if Kennedy(or Hughes) is being dangled it will be really hard to turn down. Now neither of them can be expected to outperform what Parra gave the team last year but the future is really where this would shine.

[fondybrewfan]

I thought Prince was the king of irrelevant HR's? That is just not a good argument. I would like to see you prove that fact. If you can prove that he hits more HR's than other players do when the outcome is not in question then I guess I will be proven wrong.

 

Cam is not the defender he was 5 years ago but he is still Top 5 CF in the NL easily, don't let one play in the NLCS fool you, he was very good.

 

It seems you are basing your opinion on Cameron on one bad month and completely forgetting that he carried the team for a better part of the 2nd half. The guy had a 1.2OPS in August and a .821OPS in July, he absolutely carried us. Perhaps look at his RISP his 3 previous years, they are very very good. Cam is simply better than most people give him credit for. Without a doubt he is the best all around CF the Brewers have had in a very long tim.

 

That being said, I would atleast consider a Cam for Melky & Kennedy swap. If Kennedy is as good as his 2007 minor league season showed he has much more ability than Dave Bush and perhaps a #2/3. If you could trade Cameron for a #2/3 pitcher who we would have for 5-6 years I think it is probably a no brainer. He had 6 bad starts for NY last year, but it looks like he still has oodles of potential and could help out the Crew immediately. I guess it depends on if Melvin thinks he has MLB stuff or AAAA stuff.

[brewerguy71]

I havent noticed if anyone has thought of this yet, but would anyone go for Cameron for Cano and Brian Bruney?

 

I agree that Cameron has value, but not a ton. He is a very good defender still, but I worry about him aging quickly. He could probably be had one for one involving a guy like Kennedy too, or Jackson.

[Patrick425]

I breezed through some of the comments in this thread. If this has already been mentioned, I apologize.

 

I've never been the biggest Cameron fan. I understand that the moneyball stats guys seem to like him. I'm not familiar with many of the stats that get thrown around, so it's hard for me to argue against them.

 

However, Cabrera is not Arb eligible yet...correct? It appears that the Brewers would save a ton of money with a Cabrera/Betemit or Cabrera/Kennedy or Cabrera/? for Cameron. How much more valuable in terms of wins is Cameron vs Cabrera? Wouldn't Cabrera/? + all the $ they save (and put towards other players) be more valuable than Cameron in terms of wins? Not to mention they would have these players for more than 1 year. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

[monty57]

I've never been the biggest Cameron fan. I understand that the moneyball stats guys seem to like him. I'm not familiar with many of the stats that get thrown around, so it's hard for me to argue against them.

 

Mike Cameron was suspended for the first 25 games of last season, so he only had 444 ABs, keeping him off many of the "top centerfielder" lists. Here is how he shapes up:

 

He had 25 HR in his 444 AB. Only Grady Sizemore (33), Josh Hamilton (32), Carlos Beltran (27) and Nate McClouth (26) had more. The "SABR-guys" would look a little deeper and see that Cameron hit 1 HR every 17.76 AB, while Grady Sizemore was at 1 every 19.21 AB, Josh Hamilton 1 every 19.50 AB, Carlos Beltran 1 every 22.44 AB and Nate McClouth 1 every 22.96 AB. Therefore, if Cameron had not been suspended, he likely would have led all major league CFs in HR.

 

This leads directly to SLG, which is a decent way of showing how much power a player has. If HRs were the best way to show power, then Cameron (from the above paragraph) would lead the league in SLG. However, he was 10th among major league CFs in SLG. This is because he does swing and miss a lot, and doesn't get as many hits as some of the other players. When he does hit the ball, he hits it pretty hard most of the time.

 

That swinging and missing also hurts how much he gets on base, as batting average (often the whipping boy of stats on this site) makes up the majority of a player's on base percentage. Cameron's OBP this season was .331, placing him in the bottom third of all major league CFs (21 out of 30) in this important category. However, he will take pitches and walks a lot, so his .243 batting average is helped by taking walks (often overrated here, but still very important). I think this is the biggest reason people who don't like Cameron don't like him. A CF is "supposed to" be someone with no power who gets on base a lot. That isn't the type player Cameron is. He hits more like a corner OF, but he plays good enough defense to play CF.

 

If you want to throw this into a tidy little package, you come up with an .809 OPS, which is the 11th best OPS for a CF in major league baseball. To put it in perspective, Torii Hunter had an .810 OPS, with a little higher OBP (.344 vs. .331) and a little less SLG (.466 vs. .477). Although Hunter is probably better in the field, both are Gold Glove caliber defenders. To determine if Cameron has any value, look at the huge deal Torii Hunter signed last season (I don't remember the full contract, but he made $16,500,000 in 2008).

 

I worry about him aging quickly

 

I've heard this a lot, but he put up the aforementioned numbers in 2008, I'm not citing numbers from when he was 29. Cameron had a very good 2008 season and likely would command a multi-year deal for well over $10MM / year if the Brewers hadn't used their option. That said, he is similar to most of the other players on the Brewers in that he is a right handed free-swinger that is SLG heavy and strikes out a lot. Just for correlation sake alone, it would probably benefit the team to have some talented players on the team with a different approach at the plate.

 

I guess all I'm saying here is that Cameron has a lot of value to a lot of teams, including the Brewers. I don't really care if Melvin trades him or not. He will definitely help the Brewers if he's on the team, or he could bring in a lot of talent in a trade. I just hope Melvin doesn't undervalue Cameron's abilities the way many on this site seem to.

[PilprinBuddha]

I would not consider dealing him until CC makes a decison. I like the fact that DM is hoping for a counteroffer.

[sveumrules]

...and I feel like his stats were padded by the irrelevant homerun. I can't remember a player with more meaninglessly timed homeruns.

fangraphs.com is a wonderful site when people start throwing around opinions like this. i didn't have time to go through his play by play log but a quick look at his game log shows that he homered in 24 games (he had one game with two). in those 24 games he had 20 games with overall positive WPAs and 4 with overall negative WPAs. after adding and subtracting his overall WPA for those 24 games was 2.584.

 

again this takes into account all his non-home run plate appearances in those 24 games, but by adding two and a half wins they certainly didn't seem to be completely meaninglessly timed.

[joepepsi]

It seems contradictory to me to criticize a player for "meaningless runs" at the same his team is criticized for not adding runs in games where they have the lead.

[DuWayne Steurer]

That 8th inning homer against Pittsburgh to go up one was definately meaningless.

 

I guess Cam should not try as hard when the outcome of a given game is no longer in doubt one way or the other.

 

Perception is the bane of most reasonable baseball discussion.

[RyDogg66]

As was stated before in the Fielder to Texas thread I started, Melky Carbrera is just a guy. This deal would depend on Betemit being able to handle being an everyday 3b and who the pitcher is. If it is Ian Kennedy, that might be alright. Phil Hughes and Wang wouldnt even be mentioned in a Cameron deal.

[Crewin06]

As was stated before in the Fielder to Texas thread I started, Melky Carbrera is just a guy. This deal would depend on Betemit being able to handle being an everyday 3b and who the pitcher is. If it is Ian Kennedy, that might be alright. Phil Hughes and Wang wouldnt even be mentioned in a Cameron deal.

Luckily we have you to clear that up.

 

If just a guy is a 24 year old that already has 3 years of major league experience in New York City with decent stats for his position, then I want quite a few "just a guy"s.

 

I mean the guy is 6 months older than LaPorta and just a year older than Gamel and already has 3 major league seasons under his belt with modest but decent results. Tell me why if you get this kid out of New York and the night life why he couldn't become a decent player?

[Patrick425]

Not to be repetitive, but how many wins do you think Cameron could provide over Cabrera. Is that difference worth $9mil?

[logan82]

I think it is a little interesting that people were disappointed that we exercised the option, now they're disappointed that we may deal him.

 

Not the same people. There were roughly 3-5 people who were upset that his option was picked up. The majority of posters were happy to see his option picked up.

[Tbadder]

I love Cameron (he certainly was better than Hart), and wouldn't deal him for Cabrera/Betimit unless a good pitcher was included. That said I think a Cameron/Kennedy swap even up would be fair to both teams. Kennedy could turn out to be a number two starter, but in all likelihood probably a number three or four. Cameron is the kind of player who can carry a team with his power and defense for awhile, not a long while, but sometime. Also, as active as the Yankees are going to be, I doubt Kennedy is in their plans big time, maybe as a plausible option, but not a cornerstone. Let them keep the other two--ask for Kennedy or walk away Dougie.

[RyDogg66]

Luckily we have you to clear that up.

 

If just a guy is a 24 year old that already has 3 years of major league experience in New York City with decent stats for his position, then I want quite a few "just a guy"s.

 

I mean the guy is 6 months older than LaPorta and just a year older than Gamel and already has 3 major league seasons under his belt with modest but decent results. Tell me why if you get this kid out of New York and the night life why he couldn't become a decent player?

 

1. you dont have to be so sarcastic and cocky, there probably wasnt any reason to start your post with "Luckily we have you to clear that up."

 

2. What makes you believe Cabrera will magically play better outside of NY and why do I have to prove to you he wouldnt? He was never a top prospect and was never under any undo pressure in NY, not with ARod, Giambi, Damon and others to rail on. He has gotten worse each year he has been up.

 

Like I said before, I am not opposed to acquiring him, but he shouldnt be the centerpiece. He is a tweak or two above Gwynn and if Cabrera plays like he did last year he will do wonders for attendance in Nashville.

[And That]

Luckily we have you to clear that up.

This crosses the condescension line. Please play nice.

[Ennder]

Not to be repetitive, but how many wins do you think Cameron could provide over Cabrera. Is that difference worth $9mil?

 

Probably around 2, maybe 2.5 if Cabrera is more like 2008 than his previous years. That is not worth $9M but the deal wouldnt' e Cameron for Cabrera either. A straight up deal between the two would be pretty terrible, the 'pitcher' mentioned would have to be a major part of the deal. Cabrera is a throw in to give the Brewers a viable CF for the short term.

[JimH5]

Melky is nothing more than a 4th OF.

 

Kennedy is nothing more than a 6th SP.

 

Pass.

[Ennder]

Melky is nothing more than a 4th OF.

 

Kennedy is nothing more than a 6th SP.

 

Pass.

This just based on personal opinion or is there something else backing it up? I fail to see how Melky's career does not make him a starting CF on some team and the majority of teams probably think of Kennedy as at least a 4th/5th starter. A 6th SP is a 5.50+ ERA type of guy.

[brewjihad]

Probably around 2, maybe 2.5 if Cabrera is more like 2008 than his previous years. That is not worth $9M

 

I'd say that it almost is exactly worth $9 mil. The price of a win on the free agent market is about $4.5 million.