Who could we get for Corey Hart?

[Darnell Junior]

I know that trading Corey now would be selling low given his fall-off in September, but I honestly think we could drastically improve our chances at the playoffs, without compromising our future too much. If we aim at getting a good young pitcher, our obvious need of starting pitching could be partially relieved. To fill the gap, I would suggest going with Adam Dunn, but seeing as we've stopped talking to him, I'll go with my second choice. Ken Griffey, who I know is old, declining, and brittle, could still offer an improvement over Hart, especially with reports coming out that the legs that sapped his power last year are back in good condition. If he could come anywhere near to his line of .277/.372/.496 in 2007 that would be huge. He's played over 140 games the last two years, even playing most of his games with the White Sox in Center. Even if his production doesn't match that line, it would still give us another lefthanded batter, and a huge improvement in OBP. I'd love to have three lefthanded batters against righties, and Griffey hitting 6th wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If he's struggling, even his line last year of .249/.353/.424 would be an improvent over Hart's .268/.300/.459. Defensively, I think Corey is a little overrated as a fielder because of his speed, and is about the league average. Griffey is probably a little worse than that, but I don't think the gap is as large as most percieve. I can't see him costing us a fortune either with the little interest that's been shown in him this offseason. Also, we would sell about one billion jerseys.

 

Pros:

Pitching Help

More Lefthanded

More OBP

 

Cons:

Even more K's

Defensive Regression

Injury Risk

 

Thoughts?

[ILuvDaBush]

Well it would also open up a spot for Cole Gillespie (after moving Braun to RF). But I would bank on him improving markedly, and hold on him. What type of pitcher could we get for him? Not one that he's worth.

[logan82]

He is a little over average for his career in RF so it would probably be pretty accurate to call him an average fielder. Did Hart have a leg injury he was hiding or lose a step last year? His range went down and he hit into more double plays than in the rest of his career.(well close, 36 for his career, 17 of those in 2008)

 

I think we hold onto him. We sould be trading low and I think he is much better than his numbers in 2008.

[hauser42]

Good young starting pitcher would be the only thing I take for Hart. I was not sure what he would be when he first came up, but he has a lot of potential. There are likely some teams that look at him as a strarting OFer that would at the worst bat in the 5-6 spot each day in the lineup.

[ILuvDaBush]

I would say WE are such a team.

[sheetskout]

I would say if we were extremely lucky we could get a Matt Garza type; a pitcher who has a high ceiling but hasn't had the true breakout yet.

 

Other Ideas:

Franklin Morales

Simmons/Mazzaro

Andrew Miller

[nate82]

I would say if we were extremely lucky we could get a Matt Garza type; a pitcher who has a high ceiling but hasn't had the true breakout yet.

 

Other Ideas:

Franklin Morales

Simmons/Mazzaro

Andrew Miller

This would be true if this was the beginning of the 2008 season. But sadly it is not and right now the best the Brewers could get for Hart is Niemann.

[And That]

Last offseason, I thought it would be fair to trade Hart for Nick Blackburn+. At the moment, we'd be lucky to get the +.

 

I think you hold on to Hart and hope he rebounds. If he rebounds and we're out of it at the break or at the deadline and Gamel or Gillespie or Cain are doing well enough to play with the Brewers, you trade him. Other than that, I don't see the rush. We'll already need another outfielder in '10 once Cameron leaves.

[MillerParkSouth]

I am absolutely terrified that Corey will turn into a Jeff Franceur type. The league figures out that he has no plate discipline, he fails to adjust and becomes practically worthless. I think if he has a nice year this year, we move him in the offseason.

[PeaveyFury]

The league figures out that he has no plate discipline

 

Well, he's had good plate discipline in every season at every level before last year, and even then it was only an issue for half the season.

[JohnBriggs12]

The league figures out that he has no plate discipline

 

Well, he's had good plate discipline in every season at every level before last year, and even then it was only an issue for half the season.

While he was better previously, I'd wouldn't categorize his discipline as good.

 

I'm more concerned with his lengthy HR slumps though than his lack of plate discipline. 20 HR in 612 AB? For a guy 6'6"? No wonder he doesn't draw walks. Pitchers don't fear throwing him strikes to get ahead of him. Once he's got 2 strikes, he's very vulnerable because guys his size have a lot of strikezone to protect. He needs to be more conscious of driving the ball and forget the silly bunting he tries so often. He's become too enamored with his speed. Once he starts launching balls, pitchers will become reluctant to throw him strikes and his walk totals will rise. That's when he can focus on his speed.

[endaround]

It wasn't half a season, his plate discipline was bad the entire year. As teh brek he was at .289/.327. That's not good. As for the home runs, pretty meaningless, he still had an ISO about .200 so he had decent power.

[CheezWizHed]

Biggest problem is that trading Hart leaves a hole in the OF

- Signing Dunn won't happen because of $$, (otherwise - just go after one of FA SPs and forget trading Hart)

- I don't really want to touch Griffey. We just don't have any backup OFs to replace him when he gets hurt. I would also wager a bet Hart has a better season than Griffey.

- Gillespie just isn't ready yet. Maybe in an emergency...

- Trading Hart NOW would at best get us a 4-5 level SP. Simply too late in the season.

 

Personally, I'm in the camp that thinks Hart will bounce back after an off year.

[Darnell Junior]

You can call me a pessimist but I simply don't believe Hart will have a better season than Griffey (unless he goes unsigned, of course). A .300 OBP is downright terrible. His BB/AB has regressed every year he's been in the majors, and I can't see that drastic of an improvement happening. Griffey, even in his down years, is going to put up an OBP of about .360 and slug .420 at least. He has one year of less than .350 OBP in his last 19 seasons, where Hart has just one season over it, which was mostly driven by batting nearly .300. As for backup outfielders, I would say Hall or Lamb could fill in if someone got injured for a significant period of time, or even Gamel.

 

This discussion is basically irrelevant in my opinion with the signing of Looper, however. That was about the peak caliber of starting pitcher I think we were going to get in return for Hart. I hope Hart rebounds, I really do. It would be great to have a player worth keeping for awhile at both corner outfield spots, or even just raise his value for a potential offseason move. I just think it's more likely he plays slightly better, and shows himself to have Francoeur-esque discipline, than that he had a down year.

[Ennder]

You can call me a pessimist but I simply don't believe Hart will have a better season than Griffey

 

 

At this point Griffey is one of the worst defensive OF in baseball so I don't buy this at all. I do agree that I'm worried about Hart but Griffey is pretty close to a replacement level player at this point.

[strawbossisevil]

How is it more likely that he is Francoeur part deux? Unlike Francoeur, Hart has shown plate discipline throughout his career aside from this one season. Could he have lost his batters eye? I suppose, but looking over his entire career, it wouldn't be something I would call "likely". What is far more likely is that he reverts to career norms.

 

I know you aren't interested in trading him for a pitcher at this point anymore. But if you honestly believe and admit that we would be trading low on him, why would you do it? The only situation where that would make sense is if you would be trading for someone who is also being traded low.

[silversurferr]

At the break: Hart and Parra for Peavey.

[nate82]

At the break: Hart and Parra for Peavey.

Why would the Padres do that? The Padres would want players they can control for a long period of time and Hart doesn't fall under that criteria.

[sheetswannabe]

At the break trade Escobar and mid level prospect for Peavy..

 

Then sign Hardy to a 4-6 year contract, the guy wants to stay here and hes good.

[TheCrew07]

If Sabathia was worth LaPorta, Brantley, and a decent relief prospect in Bryson how is Peavy only worth Escobar + Rivas type? Multiple years of Peavy is worth at least 2 top tier prospects, probably 3, and 1 is going to be a pitcher. Escobar, Jeffress, and Green would probably be where SD would start.

 

Again how does trading SP when we lack quality SP improve the team significantly? Especially going from Parra talent to Peavy talent... the only smaller jump on this team would be Yo to Peavy. Parra is very talented, why are we in such a hurry to dump him before we know exactly what we have? The idea shouldn't be to REPLACE starters at the front of the rotation, it should be to INSERT talent at the top of the rotation sliding everyone else down a slot. The idea should be to add more quality, not replace quality, no matter how good the pitcher is.

 

Peavy would be great, but his contract gets pretty cumbersome in a hurry. In addition his elbow issues concern me some as does paying a single player more than 15% of the team's total available payroll. It would be a tough sell to explain how Peavy is worth more at 15+ mil than Parra is with a pre Arby and Arby salary. Again I'm value orientated, how is a much more expensive Peavy more value to the Brewers than Parra? Performance isn't only factor that needs to be considered, cost per win should certainly be a factor as well. Where is all this extra money going to come from? I'm willing to listen, I don't just see it... How does the team acquire Peavy and pay Hardy a market deal? In addition to Cameron coming off the books 1 of Hardy or Fielder would have to be moved to have the financial flexibility needed. I hate to go back to my chess analogy, but it's true, every move the team makes has a domino effect, Melvin has to be planned out 5 or 6 moves ahead to make a $85 million budget work. Roster management is not as simple as swapping out 1 player for another, and never has been for the Brewers, and likely never will be unless the economics of the game change.

[Tbadder]

The problem with figuring out what we have is that this is the Milwaukee Brewers and we rarely have anything. If we wait on Parra, we're gonna find out we've got a fragile, weak-minded player, who is never going to be an above average pitcher AND pitch 200 innings a year. I agree that Hart is probably going to be the same player he was last year or regress again, leaving us still needing an outfielder. We waited to trade Sheets and now we're paying the price. We're waiting to trade Prince and unfortunately we're gonna pay the price on that as well. Thank god for Hardy--a genuine commodity. Thank god that Braun is probably going to have a decent career. I've got my fingers crossed on Gallardo. But I fear for the organization if it doesn't start trading young everday ballplayers as soon as they have a good run for pitching they never seem to develop.

[TooLiveBrew]

If we wait on Parra, we're gonna find out we've got a fragile, weak-minded player, who is never going to be an above average pitcher AND pitch 200 innings a year. I agree that Hart is probably going to be the same player he was last year or regress again, leaving us still needing an outfielder. We waited to trade Sheets and now we're paying the price. We're waiting to trade Prince and unfortunately we're gonna pay the price on that as well.

At least you're not just making wild categorizations. Do you care to try & defend any of this?

[endaround]

If only the Brewers traded Prince, then we could still have that playoff drought streak in tact!

[nate82]

Melvin has already said he won't trade Parra or Gallardo for Peavy. The Padres are looking for young starting pitching Hart is not a young starting pitcher.

 

Hart won't be in a deal that lands Peavy in Milwaukee. Hart is just not someone the Padres would be looking for maybe if this was 2006 or 2007 then they would be looking at Hart, Jeffress, and others. I'm not going to turn this into a Peavy trade talk here and if you want to discuss a trade for Peavy there is a thread already open for that.

 

As for trading Hart I don't see it as a possibility unless he is traded during the deadline. Hart won't be traded anytime before that if he is even traded at all. Hart looks likely to be traded next year along with Prince when Gamel, Cain, and Gillespie could be ready to join the Brewers.

[3Putt]

We currently have little to no protection in the lineup after Braun/Prince. Hart has served well in that role at times. Unless the crew can fill the #5 spot with an alternative that breaths RBIs (ala Carlos Lee) I don't see how we can afford to let Hart go. I agree he's been inconsistant but unless we can identify a replacement what choice do we have but to hope the good Corey Hart returns?