JJ Hardy to Twins for Carlos Gomez

[sbrylski]

Briggs, at age 23, Jason Bourgeois put up a AAA line of .240 / .301 / .317 / .618.

[kramnoj]

Gerut could man centerfield just fine.

 

Gerut may be able to man CF just fine, but we don't want him facing LHP with his career .642 OPS. As bad as Gomez has been, he would be a better option, both at the plate and in the field against lefties.

 

Now if all Gomez is is a short side platoon player and 4th OF, that would be a dreadful return for Hardy. Gerut has had good years, but he did only OPS .660 last year in his ABs with the platoon advantage. It would have been fairly risky to just hand Jody the CF job without having a backup plan. Gomez isn't confidence inspiring as either Plan A or B, but Melvin is taking a calculated risk.

[bklynbrewcrew]

Just to make matters worse I was told that Melvin was offered Harang for Hardy but didnt want to trade JJ within the division.

[kramnoj]

TH wrote that in his blog. It would be disappointing if Melvin passed up a good deal to avoid trading within the division, but I don't think a year or two of Harang with his contract is really a better return than what Gomez could potentially offer. Harang would then have been the prime pitching acquisition, and I'm guessing that Melvin is hoping for somebody better.

[RockCoCougars]

I'd rather have Gomez than Harang unless the Reds were willing to eat a huge chunk of his contract.

[bklynbrewcrew]

I would far rather have Harang than Gomez. As of this moment Gomez isnt even a major league offensive player while Harang is a quality innings eater.

[Mr QL]

We could of had Harang too?!?!

 

Jeez. Melvin really blew this one.

[sheethead]

I would far rather have Harang than Gomez. As of this moment Gomez isnt even a major league offensive player while Harang is a quality innings eater.

 

Where have I heard this before? The Brewers don't really need another eight figure innings eater.

[vannzee]

http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/pbc/archive/2009/11/10/conditioning-camp-day-1-pirates-offered-capps-to-brewers-in-trade.aspx

 

Havent seen this posted yet. Matt Capps was offered for Hardy.

[sheethead]

Havent seen this posted yet. Matt Capps was offered for Hardy.

 

More evidence of how low Hardy's value was.

[Hate those Rodents]

Capps is not a guy I'd want closing games for us, nor would I imagine any contending team would. So I too would have passed on that deal. Harang I probably would have chosen over Gomez though, although I again say we need to see how we spend our money to help the rotation before we can assess this trade.

[Teatoe993]

Yeah Capps is trash. Harang would have been a great pickup as the 2nd acquired SP this year. But it would be even more difficult to find a way to get that #1 or #2 starter by taking on Harang's contract and having to fill CF or retaining Cameron. If I was in Melvin's shoes I probably would have made the deal for Harang just because I think he's better than his stats show. He'd essentially be a 1 year rental anyway. 12.75 million this year? And then I think the 2011 year is a mutual option for 14 million with a 2 million buyout. Considering we wouldn't bring him back for 2011, we'd pretty much be paying him 15 million for one year. The Reds would have to throw in a good chunk of cash to make that deal worth it.

[SDOwen28]

This is easily Melvins worst trade as Brewers GM. In one trade he has turned the teams biggest strength (offense) into a major question mark at best.

The Brewers offense was not a strength to win a World Series. Teams dont win World Series with their offense....homerun hitters, strikeout hitters, streaky hitters, and non-situation hitters. JJ was the worst situation hitter. Everytime there was a guy on 2nd or 3rd, JJ could not get them over or in with a groundball because he was a 100% pull hitter. Now throw in his strikeouts and his streakiness. JJ had 1.25-1.5 good seasons in Milwaukee. I know his defense was good but we are not losing anything with Escobar.

 

I am not 100% sold on Gomez, but I dont mind it one bit. We got a guy that we know can play defense and is cheap. Hopefully we can figure out hitting or the strikezone to take more walks. He has a high ceiling when it comes to hitting because of his speed. Before Cameron, remember all the piss poor defense we saw in centerfield. The guy is 23....I dont care how long he has been in the majors, he is young....it takes time for most major league hitters to figure it out.

 

Bottom line....we had to trade Hardy. There was no way we could have kept him after sending him to AAA and the fact we have a better SS. Could we have waited longer into the offseason...maybe but his value could go down even more, with teams knowing we were going to trade him. If Hardy was on the team next year, it would have been a distraction the whole year. Plus, what if he continues his struggles....we might be lucky to get a bag of popcorn for him. I think we got a decent return on Hardy. His value was no where near what most people thought. We were not going to get an above average ready prospect for him. This way we save money on position players and have it to spend on pitching.

 

I think this makes the Brewers a better team for several reasons...

 

1-We get more speed on the team to manufacture runs. There were so many games we lost the past years because we could not manufacture a run (tack on a run). Going from a 2 run lead to 3 is huge. Cameron was the same type of hitter as Hardy...steaky, pull, and strikeout.

 

2- We can spend money on pitching instead of trading for a young unknown pitcher. If we made the trade for Harang and kept Cameron, that is $20 million...What kind of pitcher are we going to get next with the the little we have left? Melvin put himself in this spot with Suppan and Hall...we have to deal with it until 2011.

 

3 - We are better defensively.

 

And lastly, we dont have to JJ whinning over where he is hitting in the lineup. Most major league hitters can be good when you are hitting in front of Braun and Fielder.

[igor67]

I'm pretty sure the Yankees just won a World Series by having a strikeout prone, homer heavy line-up of mediocre aging defenders and a pitching staff heavily dependent on a couple of strikeout pitchers. And I'm pretty sure that was more or less the formula the Phillies had the year before.

[Invader3K]

Comparing the pitching staffs of the Yankees or Phillies to that of the Brewers is a joke.

[SDOwen28]

I'm pretty sure the Yankees just won a World Series by having a strikeout prone, homer heavy line-up of mediocre aging defenders and a pitching staff heavily dependent on a couple of strikeout pitchers. And I'm pretty sure that was more or less the formula the Phillies had the year before.

 

Im not going to look up the numbers but I bet they were not that strike out prone as you think. Plus they are just better at every position. Out hitters are not that good to overcome our shortfalls, like the Yankees. Now throw in their pitching.

 

Besides Howard, the Phillies were not that strikeout prone either. Thier pitching cant compare to the Brewers.

 

The way small market teams win is not homerun, strikeout players.

[trwi7]

The team that had the best OPS in the National League was the team that struck out the most in the majors and scored the second most runs in the National League.

[TooLiveBrew]

To Melvin's credit, Harang seems exactly like the kind of "soft-tossing" pitcher many on this forum have berated him for pursuing/liking. I'm glad Melvin went for Gomez over Capps. I think Harang might have been a useful pickup, but not at his price tag. At least Gomez still has room to get better, and obviously Melvin & Co. believe that he will.

[logan82]

Our problem wasn't strikeout prone hitters or anything to do with our offense at all. Our starting pitching sunk us plain and simple. With even an average starting pitching we probably win at least 85 games.

 

1-We get more speed on the team to manufacture runs. There were so many games we lost the past years because we could not manufacture a run (tack on a run). Going from a 2 run lead to 3 is huge. Cameron was the same type of hitter as Hardy...steaky, pull, and strikeout

 

We scored plenty of runs. We didn't do a good job preventing runs and that was little fault with our defense.

 

2- We can spend money on pitching instead of trading for a young unknown pitcher. If we made the trade for Harang and kept Cameron, that is $20 million...What kind of pitcher are we going to get next with the the little we have left? Melvin put himself in this spot with Suppan and Hall...we have to deal with it until 2011.

 

The free agent starting pitching is underwhelming at best. The best guys to sign are more than likely to be the ones with injury concerns because we might be able to get then on one year deals. Being stuck with almost any of the free agent pitcher for more than a couple years would probably look like the Suppan deal by the end.

 

3 - We are better defensively.

 

Maybe, maybe not. We are probably about equal on defense going from Hardy/Cameron to Escobar/Gomez. If we are better it is very minimal at most.

 

I agree we had to trade Hardy, but even if this trade is equal value for equal value like Russ thinks, we still traded a valuable resource for something we really didn't have a strong need for instead of taking Hardy and packaging him with a couple other players for pitching which is our real need.

[Ennder]

Edwin Jackson is on the trading block, that is someone I'd probably have preferred to Gomez. Not that I'm all that high on Jackson but he is at least decent.

[trwi7]

Wonder what it would take to get him now? They're saying it could be due to payroll concerns and them not being able to afford Verlander and Jackson.

[Invader3K]

Haudricourt just mentioned on his blog that Melvin says he was offered "relievers but not starting pitchers" for Hardy. He does mention Capps was offered.

[igor67]

Yankees led all of baseball in HRs, Phillies were first in the NL and 3rd in all of baseball in HRs, The two teams finished 1st and 4th in runs scored, Brewers finished 9th. On the pitching side Phillies finished 7th in runs allowed, the Yankees 14th in runs allowed. My point was very simple pitching and defense can win championships, but ti is not the only way. The Yankees had the best offense in the league, very mediocre defense (Cano, Jeter Posada all mediocre to below average defenders up the middle) and good enough pitching. The Phillies actually were more balanced in terms of being good offense and pitching wise.

[bklynbrewcrew]

Harang doesnt throw hard but he does miss bats. The guy does strike out a good amount of hitters which is exactly what we need. Washburn and Davis are better versions of Suppan and Looper which is not good enough for us to contend especially since our offense looks to be much weaker than it was before.

[Flood Pants]

Teams dont win World Series with their offense....

Of course! A great pitching staff and a great defense scores more runs than a great offense?

 

You win baseball games by scoring more runs than the other team. You can limit your opponents runs, but obviously the more your team can put on the board, the better off you are.