Bill Hall traded to Mariners for P Ruben Flores

[Ennder]

Hall's value is negative so any savings he got is a victory.

[The Truth]

a fairly disappointing trade. Lets hope theres some kind of side agreement for future considerations in another trade in the off-season. Doubtful

[Funketown]

If there were a better deal on the market, Melvin would have taken it. The bottom line is that Hall is a replacement level player at this point, so even getting salary relief around 1.5 million should be a pretty big win.

[MNBrew]

Wow. Bill Hall has stunk for the past 2.5 years and based on some of the posts in this thread, some folks still think his 2006 was only last year. I'd love to have gotten something of value for Hall, too. But he wasn't worth anything of value.

 

No GM in their right mind was going to give up anything of value. The fact that Melvin got someone to take on $1.3M of Hall's contract when in a couple days no one would've had to pay anything is a move approaching brilliance.

[JoeHova]

I wish Bill luck in Seattle.

[SeriesFinale]

Funny that a few weeks ago the Mariners might've gotten JJ Hardy or even Alcides Escobar by some reports, but they ended getting a former Brewers SS anyway, if not one they were initially hoping for. Of course, Flores is no Washburn either.

 

Well, I'll take the savings--I agree there was no chance that DM took that $1.3M saved over a Harang or Arroyo so I'm not gonna get chapped at him. On the other hand, there was a lot of chat about "something in the works" and seemed to be more interest around MLB (relatively speaking) for this to have been the move, but whatever.

 

I'm a Billy Hall fan so I want to wish him the best in Seattle but it would indeed be a bitter pill to have the Brewers furnish the salary of a newly-successful Bill Hall as a well-paid Mariner.

[yogallardo43]

Seeing this deal, I would've gladly traded Hall for Kei Igawa.

[TooLiveBrew]

Was that ever an offer? I thought the Igawa talk was centered around the Cameron talks.

[jeffy]

MNBrew wrote:

 

The fact that Melvin got someone to take on $1.3M of Hall's contract when in a couple days no one would've had to pay anything is a move approaching brilliance.

But they were only in that situation because they chose to DFA Hall. What was the point of doing that at this late date? What great improvement to the 25 man roster did this result in?

[SeriesFinale]

Was that ever an offer? I thought the Igawa talk was centered around the Cameron talks.

I kinda think people's anger here about these supposed rumored deals (none of which, outside the Reds rumors, seemed to have much smoke around them) is like Michael Crabtree wanting be paid as a Top 5 pick in the NFL Draft even though he was 10th because that's what the mock drafts had him at.

 

As far as we know, the Reds wanted us to pay the lion's share of both Hall and Haranag/Arroyo's deal.

[kramnoj]

What was the point of doing that at this late date? What great improvement to the 25 man roster did this result in?

 

There is no official answer, but I think some of us thought that Hall was kept around in case he could be used in some bad contract swap that improved the Brewers.

 

As to the 2nd question, why should be expect a great improvement to the current roster by trading Hall? The savings that the Brewers get from this isn't insignificant. It could be the difference in retaining Counsell next year, for example.

 

The Mariners can use Hall now, and they could have tens of millions coming off the books next year. They basically just signed their UI next year for $1.3M next year.

[yogallardo43]

I wasn't saying that there was confirmation on Igawa. I was just thinking that Igawa has no future in NY. He will not break that rotation. So essentially, Igawa has no value to the Yankees and is owed $9 million over the next two years. I was just saying that I think a trade like that made sense for both teams.

[rluzinski]

The Brewers got $1.3 mil for a player that had negative value (projected value - salary). I figured the best Melvin would be able to do is trade for another player with negative value, so good for him.

[jeffy]

As to the 2nd question, why should be expect a great improvement to the current roster by trading Hall?

No, I did not mean as a result of the trade, I meant as a result of opening up a spot on the roster when they DFAed him.

 

Why not have kept him on the roster, put him through waivers and then try to trade him, without this artificial deadline?

[derflotr]

Why on earth would the Reds deal Aaron Harang for Bill Hall? He's a late-inning defensive replacement who had a nice year 3 years ago. People expected way too much out of this. The Brewers got slight salary relief instead of no salary relief. Fine by me.

[Invader3K]

Guys, it was never seriously rumored to be for Harang. Just because a couple people on here threw the idea out as speculation, doesn't mean it was necessarily a real possibility. Gord Ash has some comments out that explain further.

[crewcrazy]

I was one of those hoping for something bigger, but just unloading him for a warm body and some salary relief is a small victory in itself. Here are the comments from Gord Ash that Invader was referencing, per McCalvy:

 

"Doug was carrying on most of the conversation and he had a couple of clubs seriously interested, one in the National League and one in the American League, with a couple of others who made calls but were not serious," Ash said. "The National League club, in the last short while, didn't feel like it could match the financial relief that we were going to get with the Mariners."

 

Two NL teams were rumored to have interest: Cincinnati and San Francisco. In all the scenarios, Milwaukee would have received a Minor League player in return, Ash said, dousing speculation that the Reds might have tried to unload an equally bulky contract by dealing pitchers Aaron Harang or Bronson Arroyo.

 

"I saw someone wrote about significant Major League pitchers, but when you're in this situation when you designate a player for assignment and you're a day removed from releasing that player, a club's not going to go to that length to acquire a player like this," Ash said. "They can just wait and acquire the player as a free agent."

[kramnoj]

I meant as a result of opening up a spot on the roster when they DFAed him.

 

They were able to bring up a player who should be a better outfielder and who shouldn't hit as poorly as Hall has hit so far.

 

Why not have kept him on the roster, put him through waivers and then try to trade him, without this artificial deadline?

 

Seattle can use him right now, with Beltre and Wilson unavailable. I think Jack Z did Melvin a favor, paying as much as he did. I certainly wouldn't expect a team to give up more. Moving him now is a benefit. It's one less thing for the Brewers to do this offseason when a pitching staff is waiting to be built.

[JoeHova]

They were able to bring up a player who should be a better outfielder and who shouldn't hit as poorly as Hall has hit so far.

Why would we think Bourgeois is better offensively (or defensively) than Hall? I find either idea implausible, although that's not necessarily saying much for Hall.

[Diskono]

This is horrendous. Melvin talks like he has something in the works and he winds up paying nearly all of Hall's contract and gets a 25 yr old A ball pitcher with no upside. Im not on the fence in regards to Melvin any longer, its time for him to go.

Flores actually looks intriguing to me. He looks like he's missed two seasons due to injury, but still strikes out a ridiculous number of hitters. I'll admit I've never actually heard of him before today, but I'm guessing he was probably a pretty big prospect at one point. One could look at this like we're adding another Mike Jones.

[kramnoj]

Why would we think Bourgeois is better offensively (or defensively) than Hall?

 

You really find this implausible? Hall was terrible as a CF. He got better as he went on, but he shouldn't be expected to be an asset as an outfielder. As far as offensively, I just plugged Bourgeois's season into an MLE and got .281/.312/346. That's better than the .606 OPS that Hall has provided this year, and doesn't include the speed that Bourgeois has.

[jeffy]

Gord Ash:

...when you're in this situation when you designate a player for assignment and you're a day removed from releasing that player...

 

 

(and we had no choice but to put ourselves under this time pressure by DFAing Hall, because we needed both Iribarren and Bourgeois on the MLB roster NOW, not in three weeks...those two players were the key to our strategy for making a run at the playoffs.) http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/ohwell.gif

 

 

[Tailgat0r76]

Gord Ash:

...when you're in this situation when you designate a player for assignment and you're a day removed from releasing that player...

 

 

(and we had no choice but to put ourselves under this time pressure by DFAing Hall, because we needed both Iribarren and Bourgeois on the MLB roster NOW, not in three weeks...those two players were the key to our strategy for making a run at the playoffs.) http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/ohwell.gif

 

 

My thoughts exactly. But maybe it did have to be done immediately so Hardy's move down (and maybe delaying FA year) looked less systematic.

[brewmann04]

geez what did you think we were going to get for Hall,alot were happy with getting a bunch of balls in return.

[yount19.u]

Bill Hall's only value to this team was as a late inning defensive replacement. On a team that needs as much offense as possible to make up for the holes our starting pitching digs for us, what real value did he bring to the team? Hall's a good defender, but he's no Brooks Robinson. His defense doesn't come close to outweighing his horrible offense. He became a very expensive paper weight and was clearly showing no signs of improving. Melvin was lucky to find anyone who was willing to take on more than the league minimum of Hall's salary, and he actually got a live player in return. $1.3 million in savings is a lot for the small market Brewers, and as someone mentioned earlier, could mean the re signing of Counsell (or the signing of a similar player). This was a good thing.