JJ Hardy to Twins for Carlos Gomez

[TheCrew07]

I haven't had time time yet to read the entire thread yet, the first page (50 posts) but this pisses me off enough I just wanted to vent.

 

I realize that I've bagged on many of Melvin's moves so it might appear that I don't like the guy when that's not the case, I just think he keeps addressing the symptoms instead of the actual problem. Until I started to seriously evaluate the pitching situation a couple of years ago Melvin could pretty much do no wrong in my eyes. He did a fantastic job turning around the franchise and no one can ever take that away from him, but I have no idea why he thinks he can trading assets away without acquiring meaningful pitching?

 

How does acquiring a good defensive CF who won't hit enough a solution to any issues with this team? If he wanted to do that why not Cain or Schafer next year? How does trading one good defensive CF for another address the pitching situation at all? We're basically holding the status quo defensively, downgrading offensively, and keeping a horrible pitching staff intact? I could see if Braun was playing CF or something... but we had Cameron. This is the plan Doug? Seriously?

 

Sure we're saving money on Hardy and Cameron, but to what to end? I'm not into FA pitching but i could understand if Lackey was the target, beyond him, what pitchers on the market are worth spending money on? Pitchers like Davis and Washburn, they might be upgrades today, but what about in 2011? I've made cases against them previously and this isn't the thread to rehash that sort of thing.

 

I saw that And That simply posted "I'm devastated".... I feel pretty much exactly the same way. It feels like my worst fears are coming true, I'm really struggling to get behind Melvin's vision here.

[endaround]

The whole issue to me is that Gerut and a RH 5th OFer platoon would be very similar to Gomez next year. Sure in two years you have a hole but Cain can be ready or you address it then. You trade Hardy and not really make the team better next year while creating a mini log jam. And Gomez already has over 2 years service time so you won't even have Gomez during his prime most likely.

[thebruce44]

ELCABALLO45 wrote:

Braun's 2007 was also better then his year this year.

 

To say they both had their "career years" at the age of 25 is kind of foolish.

It has been their career years to this point. Expecting them to repeat that year in year out is foolish in my opinion.

 

But we just said it wasn't Braun's career year.

 

Its besides the point though. By and large the offense will be the same next year with these two new players assuming an upgrade at catcher, only with 14 mil in savings and lots more upside.

[endaround]

You're not accounting for the loss of Lopez and the return to normal of McGehee. That's huge.

[Mr QL]

Maybe I could get behind this if we used the money we saved on resigning Prince. I doubt it though.

[Oldcity]

Any way we could wait and see what's done with the money Melvin saved before we conclude whether he made the team better?

[olliegjw]

You're not accounting for the loss of Lopez and the return to normal of McGehee. That's huge.

And you are not accounting for the return of a (hopefully) healthy Weeks for an entire year. They were 10 games over .500 when he got hurt this year.

 

Whose saying what is normal for McGehee? I would guess that his production would be down in 2010, but who knows by how much.

[wibadgers23]

Yeah, I'm just going to wait and see what happens over the next three months. If Melvin doesn't get any pitching, then this trade will have made absolutely no sense.

[sheethead]

For 2010, I think there's little chance Escobar + Gomez + $14 is as valuable as Hardy + Cameron.

This depends entirely on what Melvin gets for the $14M.

[ELCABALLO45]

I also think its awesome that its November 6th and some people are declaring 2010 season as a "punt". Haha thats classic.

 

But I do think its awesome that we have a 13 page thread about a move already. Hopefully this ist he first of a eventful offseason for the crew.

[thebruce44]

And that is really what I am taking objection with as well. Declairing Gomez's 2010 to be bad and the Brewers rebuilding? We have seen Melvin put 2 cards down on the table out of 5. Give him some time here folks.

[Mr QL]

In a dream offseason, what could Melvin realistically get with this $14 mil that could turn us into a playoff team? What are you hoping for?

[Fatter than Joey]

Some teams dump salary and then retool, some teams just dump salary

[Weirdos19]

You're not accounting for the loss of Lopez and the return to normal of McGehee. That's huge.

Get off the ledge people. JJ was a reserve the second part of last year. The only mistake Melvin made was not trading him at the deadline last year.

Weeks was great last year while healthy. There is no reason to think he cannot continue that. He replaces Lopez.

 

McGehee can hit, period. You could see that in Chicago. With a clean knee, he could even be better.

 

Gomez may never hit 300. But I'm pretty sure Cameron won't anymore either. Sure, Cameron walked alot last year. With Hart, Hardy, Hall, Kendall, or Rivera behind him, he should never see good pitches. If Gomez bats eighth, he will learn to be patient.

 

Now, if Hardy/Hart/Cameron/Kendall = Escobar/Kawakami/Gomez/Salome + a free agent starter with money saved, I'll be ecstatic.

[Fatter than Joey]

Gomez may never hit 300.

 

Gomez may never OBP .300

[Mr QL]

Some teams dump salary and then retool, some teams just dump salary

That's a good point. Times are tough and (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think Attanasio is getting any richer. I think I remember hearing the team lost money this year.

[nate82]

You're not accounting for the loss of Lopez and the return to normal of McGehee. That's huge.

I believe Weeks can do what Lopez did and probably will improve on the numbers that Lopez put up. McGehee will probably be about average at 3B next year. I still believe the Brewers are going to be trading McGehee/Hart and not Gamel this off season unless Halladay or someone like him becomes available.

 

The Brewers now have a lot of payroll flexibility to play with. Offensively the team will take a hit but it is not as much as the sky is falling crowd is claiming it will be. I believe Escobar and Gomez will improve on their OBP and it will be no worse than what Hardy and Cameron did for the Brewers. The Brewers can upgrade their OPS at the catchers spot by having Rivera behind the plate or signing Miguel Olivo or bringing up Salome or Lucroy. All of those options would drastically improve the OPS at the catcher spot. At worst you would be getting nearly the same production as last year.

 

Replacing Kendall with a higher OPS catcher and replacing Cameron with Gomez would be a wash. You increase at one position and decrease at another. I don't believe Cameron would be a near .800 OPS player next year probably more along the lines of .760-.770. Which is still valuable but if the Brewers can upgrade at catcher and stay or improve defensively at CF it shouldn't be a problem. At worst Gomez will be like Kendall.

 

I'm not going to call this a bad or a good trade until all of the information is available. That means when the off season is said and done with a lot of things can happen between now and February. There just is not enough information right now to say if this is a good or bad trade.

[Weirdos19]

Gomez may never hit 300.

 

Gomez may never OBP .300

Could you at least quote my whole paragraph?

 

The point is that Gomez led off much of his career in Minnesota. Would you walk him with Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer behind him??

 

Cam batted sixth with a bunch of .230 hitters behind him. Would you walk him? Cam also took more strike 3's down the middle than anyone in the history of baseball. Exagaration? A little.

[Fatter than Joey]

Would you walk him with Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer behind him??

 

I wouldn't walk Gomez if he was batting 8th

[trwi7]

Melvin said he was talking with six or seven teams and was saying I need pitching or a CF. I'd really like to hear what pitchers he was offered, because I have a hard time imagining the pitchers being offered being worse than Gomez.

[thebruce44]

In a dream offseason, what could Melvin realistically get with this $14 mil that could turn us into a playoff team? What are you hoping for?

 

I will bite with the caveat that DM is the GM is knows more about baseball than me or anyone else on this board and that I don't have time to look up exact salaries so I am just throwing some ideas out there.

 

For step one, I would take on Harang's contract (11 mil?) and a live arm AAA bullpen guy for a medium level prospect.

 

Step two could be a number of things. A Prince trade could bring in a young #2 with upside with enough financial flexibility to sign a stop gap 1b like Nick Johnson.

 

Step two could also be one or two high risk, high reward SP types like a Mulder.

 

The great thing right now is that Doug can go in a variety of directions depending on what is out there. He has moved from a position of trading weekness to strength because of the flexibility he just opened up. I am confident he will make wise moves with this flexibility, while most here seem to be on that ledge thinking the sky is falling and Doug is "destroying what Jack Z built."

[sheethead]

In a dream offseason, what could Melvin realistically get with this $14 mil that could turn us into a playoff team? What are you hoping for?

 

An HD Scoreboard in CF. And better fireworks before the game and after wins (when the roof is open). And a crying room for Corey Hart for when he realizes he has no body to die his hair black with next year.

 

Seriously, I assume Melvin is going to make a run at Mulder, Lackey, Washburn or Davis. The later two would not excite me. The former two would make me moderately satisfied. The bottom line is he traded our back up SS for a starting CFer with similar 2009 offensive stats. Hardly a call for crucifying the GM.

[nate82]

Melvin said he was talking with six or seven teams and was saying I need pitching or a CF. I'd really like to hear what pitchers he was offered, because I have a hard time imagining the pitchers being offered being worse than Gomez.

I believe you can look at Guthrie, Arroyo, and Harang type of pitchers who all are near the amount of WAR that Gomez would provide you are the types that Hardy would have brought in. It would have been a wash to get any of those three compared to Gomez.

[trwi7]

I definitely would've taken Harang over Gomez.

 

ESPNEWS on the trade.

 

"Brewers trade SS J.J. Hardy to the Twins for Chris Gomez."

 

Yeah, so bad they don't even know his name.

[sheetswannabe]

Bruce, that was beautiful. Perfect.