Cameron for Melky Cabrera? Nick Swisher?

[PeaveyFury]

I know it was mentioned in previous pages, but according to MLBTR,the Brewers asked about Igawa instead of the Yanks trying to dump him on the Brewers. While this may or may not be accurate

 

Did they specifically say that it was contrary to reports? Otherwise, they probably got the rumor wrong.

[Patrick425]

I was surprised to wake up this morning, open up the paper, and find this trade on the front burner again. Some thoughts about the article in the JS this morning and some other things I heard.

 

- I heard on the way in to work that R. Ibanez is about to agree on a contract with the Phillies for about $30 mil over 3 years. I know he does not play CF, but I would rather have Ibanez than Cameron. Based on this contract (if it's true), I don't think Cameron is a value and may even be overpriced. I'm sure others will disagree.

 

- The article mentioned that the Brewers would turn around any savings from this trade to shore up starting pitching. They mentioned 4 possibilites - Moyer, Smoltz, Johnson, and Wolf. Of those 4, only Wolf is below the age of 40. Not really thrilled with any of those guys.

 

- Melvin was quoted as saying: "We weren't going to go out and get A.J. Burnett or Derek Lowe because they didn't want to come here". This is the Catch 22 of being a small market team. Players don't want to come here because they don't believe the team can truly be competitive and the team can't attract the players it needs to prove it's competitive. I also think that no matter how competitive the Brewers become, there are some big name players who will never consider playing in a city like Milwaukee.

[PilprinBuddha]

Seriouisly, can you blame them? If you can pitch for a team like the Cubs, Cardinal, etc. who year in and year out make a run improving the team via trades and FA, why would you want to play for a small market team that only every few years can do that.

[PeaveyFury]

I know he does not play CF, but I would rather have Ibanez than Cameron.

 

Ibanez was certainly better at the plate than Cameron last year, but part of the appeal of Cameron is that since both Ibanez and Cameron are in their mid-30's, Cameron is only on a 1-year deal. So as they decline, we're only on the hook for him for one more year, while we could be stuck with a declining Ibanez until he's 39.

 

And also, Cameron is one of the best defensive OF's in the game, and Ibanez is one of the worst. He's a trainwreck even in the corner OF's, and as he gets older it could become truly disturbing to see him in the OF anywhere.

 

Not really thrilled with any of those guys.

 

I guess I'm not sure why, as each one of them would be an upgrade for our current team. Smoltz could be a huge upgrade depending on his health.

[fleehaw]

I know it was mentioned in previous pages, but according to MLBTR,the Brewers asked about Igawa instead of the Yanks trying to dump him on the Brewers. While this may or may not be accurate

 

Did they specifically say that it was contrary to reports? Otherwise, they probably got the rumor wrong.

That's fine if they got it wrong. That wasn't the point of the post. The point was that Igawa could have some value to the Brewers while providing cash (in the form of salary relief) for the Yankees. Igawa could be a throw in (along with some cash from the Yankees) to Cabrera and a 2nd player/prospect for Cameron.

[endaround]

Ohh and Ibanez costs a draft pick to sign. If Ibanez is a $10m player Cameron is a bargain.

[fondybrewfan]

Ohh and Ibanez costs a draft pick to sign. If Ibanez is a $10m player Cameron is a bargain.

Ibanex has just agreed to a 3 year contract for $30M, so Ibanez is a $10M player

[Oldcity]

Just wacky that Philly would not offer Burrell arbitration and pursue Ibanez instead.

[endaround]

I wonder if this means they are gearing up to trade Howard in a year. Ibanez for three years at that price is just a bad deal.

[jjfanec]

It is funny because I bet the BBTN people will be loving this move. All week they were bragging up Ibanez as the best of the left-handed bats out there. One guy even said he played good defense.

[bklynbrewcrew]

If defense was irrelevant Ibanez would be considered better than Cameron because he is a better hitter. Since this is not beer league softball cameron has much more value than Ibanez and the fact that Cameron only has a one yr deal makes him that much more valuable. With the yankees being so desperate for a CF we should really be able to get much more than cabrera in return. We should at the very least be able to get Kennedy since he has no spot with that team anyway.

[Invader3K]

I don't see why something like Cameron/Hall for Cabrera/Kennedy should be that hard for the Yankees to do at this point. It makes sense for both sides.

 

And as far as the Brewers paying any salary, I hope Melvin told Cashman what to do with that idea.

[JohnBriggs12]

It is funny because I bet the BBTN people will be loving this move. All week they were bragging up Ibanez as the best of the left-handed bats out there. One guy even said he played good defense.

Would anybody think Manny Ramirez at $30 million over 3 years is a bad deal?

 

Ramirez is the same age as Ibanez. Ibanez has 338 RBI in the past 3 years playing for dreadful Mariners. Manny has 311 RBI over the past 3 seasons playing for Red Sox and Dodgers.

 

If Ibanez had played in a major market he'd have gotten a lot more attention.

[homer]

If RBI was the only metric by which to judge a hitter then I might agree. But it's not and it's not even a very meaningful one at that.

[Pudster13]

Craziness.

 

If we offered Manny a ONE year deal at $30M, the Brewers would be turned down.

 

But I see your point that Ibanez is actually a good deal at $10M per year and I agree.

 

 

 

If the Cameron for Cabrera trade goes down still, what about signing Griffey to a 1-2 year deal?

 

He hits lefthanded, but I'm not 100% sure he can still play adequate defense in center anymore.

 

My hopes are that if we do acquire Melky, we plan to only use him as a 4th OF.

 

Thoughts?

[monty57]

I really hope Melvin is able to pick up a decent second player in this deal, as Cameron for Cabrera only makes the team worse, both offensively and defensively, in 2009. Maybe Melvin has some blockbuster deal in the works and needs the money, but if not, I don't see why they can't afford for example, Jamie Moyer and Fuentes without trading Cameron... they lost a heck of a lot of salary off the books from last season.

 

Maybe they only signed Cameron to trade him, and never had any intention of keeping him this season. In that case, I guess any return is better than the nothing they'd have received if they didn't pick up the option. However, if they are destined to trade him, I would much rather see them pick up a pitcher. I don't think Hart would be a good CF, but I'd rather see us pick up a couple million of Cameron's pay and land Kennedy, play Hart in CF, and sign Abreau, Dunn, or any other decent hitting corner OF. Currently, it looks like we're spending one of our better trading chips to become worse in one position without upgrading any others.

 

If we were in rebuilding mode, I could understand this deal. Get a young player who's under your control that has a lot of upside. But the reality is that if they could re-sign Sheets, they'd have basically the same team that made the playoffs this season, so it's not like they should be rebuilding. As someone else said earlier, we need to make moves that make us better, not just different.

[Invader3K]

Craziness.

 

 

If the Cameron for Cabrera trade goes down still, what about signing Griffey to a 1-2 year deal?

 

He hits lefthanded, but I'm not 100% sure he can still play adequate defense in center anymore.

 

My hopes are that if we do acquire Melky, we plan to only use him as a 4th OF.

I don't know...I get the feeling that if Cabrera is on the Brewers, he's going to play CF most of the time.

 

Griffey is in the twilight of his career...he didn't look that great last year, and is definitely not a CF at this point. I hope he maybe goes somewhere like Seattle where he can be a 4th OF and maybe DH some, then call it a career, personally.

[Hate those Rodents]

I have a bad feeling Melvin has the itch for left handed hitters like good ol' Dean Taylor had a few years ago for (a defensive-minded starting catcher and a left handed pitcher). We ended up with Henry Blanco as our starting catcher and dealt our best hitter (Jeromy Burnitz) for Glendon Rusch. I'll take talent over a handedness, thank you very much.

[Invader3K]

Well, the Burnitz trade was pretty bad in retrospect. Fortunately, I don't think Melvin will make any moves that extreme.

 

I wouldn't say he's obsessed with left handed hitting or anything like that, though...the fact is that other than Prince, the Brewers had no decent lefty bats last year. I think that's worth rectifying if you don't have to give up the farm to get it.

[jjfanec]

Melvin said he needed a left-handed bat last year, but still signed Cameron, so I doubt he will do anything stupid just to get a left-handed bat

[TooLiveBrew]

Plus it's not arbitrary to say that you want a LH batter. The vast majority of pitchers are RH, and lefties historically fare better against RHP than RHB do.

 

Now with Taylor's 'we need a LH SP'... that's just being arbitrary

[logan82]

Invader3K wrote:

I wouldn't say he's obsessed with left handed hitting or anything like that, though...the fact is that other than Prince, the Brewers had no decent lefty bats last year. I think that's worth rectifying if you don't have to give up the farm to get it.

and the left handed batter is actually close to as good as Cameron.

[trwi7]

I know it was mentioned in previous pages, but according to MLBTR,the Brewers asked about Igawa instead of the Yanks trying to dump him on the Brewers.

Haudricourt said that they were talking about adding Hall to the deal, but the Yankees wanted the Brewers to take Igawa and pay some of Hall's salary so they said forget it and just took Hall out of the deal.

[monty57]

Well, the Burnitz trade was pretty bad in retrospect. Fortunately, I don't think Melvin will make any moves that extreme.

 

Well, he's esentially trading an .800+ OPS, gold glove CF for a .650 OPS decent glove CF. I haven't seen much of Melky's play, but everything I read says something to the effect of "The Yankees need to upgrade their CF position because their current players aren't good enough for a playoff caliber team." The current player they're talking about is Cabrera, so I'm not overly enthused about trading a good player for a not-so-good player. The fact that we will have control of this not-so-good player for a long time doesn't sweeten the deal... we have control of all kinds of subpar players, most of whom are eventually let go.

 

I really hope I'm wrong on this, and Cabrera proves himself to be better than I expect. I know he's young and I know he's got potential. However, that's what AAA is for, or what rebuilding teams build with. It shouldn't be what a playoff hopeful team starts everyday, especially when they trade a good player to get it. I was okay with this rumor when I thought Cabrera was the throw-in player in a deal for a starting pitcher. It scares me that Cabrera is the focal point of this trade.

[RU Rah Rah]

I just wonder about about running Rickie and Cabrera out there, day after day. There's only so much screaming at the TV that one guy can do....