Still in contention?

[jeffy]

Perhaps the reason Melvin only mentions calls he is receiving or not receiving and not any calls he may be making is he does not want his players reading things like:

 

Melvin said "I've called all 29 teams shopping Bush, but none of them would offer more than a bag of balls in exchange, and that" in the newspaper.

[DannoMac21]

Can't help but feel bad for Bush with this all coming public. He just seems like a class act.

[The Truth]

Just a guess but I think the reality is that Melvin wanted more for Bush than teams wanted to give up, and Melvin's comments to the media are relative to the off-season in terms of trying to lower Bush's asking price

 

It is completely impossible that Dave Bush would be "flying under the radar" of any MLB GM, let alone all of them

[monty57]

But shouldn't Melvin have called other GM's to "bring his name up," rather than calling the paper to joke about no one else bringing his name up?

 

Why is this assumption made? Do you seriously believe that Melvin didn't call teams at all on Bush?

No, which is why I also said: "I'm sure he does make calls, but it seems every quote I read makes me feel like he sits in his office waiting for the phone to ring."

 

The point is that Bush is better than a number of #5 starters on playoff-hopeful teams. We get nothing by letting Bush walk at the end of the season other than potentially being a little better in 2010 than we would be if Capuano started instead of Bush. As far as the future goes, we're better off getting the proverbial "mid-tier prospect" than we are by letting Bush walk for nothing.

 

For context, the question of this thread is whether the Front Office really believes that we're still in contention this season (or at least if they believed this prior to the Houston series). If Melvin didn't believe that we were still in contention, I find it hard to believe that he couldn't find anyone who would trade something for Dave Bush. I'd have to think a playoff team would trade a "mid-tier prospect" for Dave Bush, rather than trotting out a 5+ ERA guy to the mound every five days.

 

So therefore I think Melvin actually did feel we were still in contention this season, and probably didn't work too hard shopping Dave Bush. Since no one called with an offer, Bush didn't go anywhere. I do think he shopped Hart, but would only bite if the return was someone who could fit into the rotation this year, thereby helping the 2010 Brewers "compete" for a playoff spot. Like last season, Melvin will figure out just a little bit too late that we aren't going to make the playoffs. Hopefully this year whoever he tries to slip through waivers makes it, unlike Hoffman last season.

 

Again, why does this matter? Well, if we trade some of the pending FAs (who we'll get no draft picks for) for "mid-tier prospects," some of these prospects will pay off. If Cameron, Hoffman, Edmonds and Bush had been traded over the past two seasons, maybe one of the trades would have netted us someone who would end up in our rotation in the future. It's just some opportunities missed that potentially could have helped this team into the future. Mid-market teams need to take advantage of any opportunites they get.