Greinke traded to Milwaukee; Latest -- more on how it came about

[Mass Haas]

Here's the link to our Transaction Rumor thread on Zack Greinke, beginning when Bernie's Crew first broke the story.

 

This new thread will discuss the trade, and the rumors thread will be closed.

 

LINK -- Buster Olney of ESPN confirms

Former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke has been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney on Sunday morning.

 

In the deal, the Royals are reportedly acquiring Brewers outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar and prospect pitchers Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress for Greinke, 10-14 with a 4.17 ERA in 2010 after winning the 2009 Cy Young.

 

The Brewers were expected to receive another major leaguer in the deal. Jim Breem of the blog "Bernie's Crew" reported that player to be shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.

[Invader3K]

If this is all true, it's about the best early Christmas present Doug Melvin could bring Brewers fans all over the world.

[MillerParkSouth]

if true, its exciting, but 5+ years of Escobar and Cain and 6 years of Jeffress and Odorizzi seems like a heck of a lot to give up for 2 years of Greinke. Can we contend with Betancourt and Gomez/Dickerson at SS and CF?

[wisconsinfan47]

I haven't been following the offseason as closely as some, but I've heard the Central is again supposed to be pretty weak.

 

We gotta be the favorites, right?

[Invader3K]

We gotta be the favorites, right?

At this point I would think so.

[FIPS133]

Wow, if this comes to pass our rotation looks great. Who now wants to take a chance on keeping Prince around through the All Star break to see if we can contend?

[monty57]

This definitely should make us the favorite for the Central, and I am excited about the news, but as MillerParkSouth said, this is an expensive bill.

[endaround]

if true, its exciting, but 5+ years of Escobar and Cain and 6 years of Jeffress and Odorizzi seems like a heck of a lot to give up for 2 years of Greinke. Can we contend with Betancourt and Gomez/Dickerson at SS and CF?

Its 5 years of Escobar, 6 years of Cain but who knows of Jeffress and Odorizzi. Odorizzi is at least 3 years away from Milwaukee full time assuming everything goes right with performance and no injury.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't know whether to be sick, or elated.

 

We gave up a LOT.

 

I can't help but feel like Melvin is sacrificing the future to win in 2011 to save his job.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely STOKED about getting Greinke, but Melvin gutted the top prospects in this organization to get 2 pitchers and one TERRIBLE, overpaid shortstop.

 

Melvin's putting all his eggs in the 2011 basket, and I hope to heck he's right about this year.

[Invader3K]

I agree with those saying we're giving up a lot, but that's what it was going to take to get two years of an ace pitcher. Escobar didn't light the world on fire and may never live up to his potential. Odorizzi and Jeffress are both still at least a couple years away from being full time major league starters. Giving up Cain probably impacts the team the most right now, but they have other CF prospects coming up soon.

[yfinn6]

As a Brewer fan, obviously I'm very happy to land a pitcher of Greinke's talent. A few of my thoughts:

 

Of the players going to KC, I'm most disappointed to lose Cain and Odorizzi. I know Jake is still a few years away from the Brewers, and chances are that he could get hurt and never quite develop. That being said, he was still an exciting prospect to follow. Losing Cain hurts because I think he would have been a decent OBP guy and filled a hole in CF that the Brewers may now have to fill with Dickerson/Gomez. I'm not too thrilled about that.

 

Will the Brewers work on an extension with Greinke? If not, he'll surely be a Type A at the end of 2012 thus netting the Brewers some picks. That helps to replenish the system a bit. I'm curious as to see what they'll do about SS. Will Betancourt be the guy? I've not read glowing reports on the guy.

 

Overall, the Brewers needed to address their starting pitching. It's definitely safe to say that they did that.

[tyguy20204]

Worth it! So definitely worth it! Let's start the season now!

[benji]

I like this trade a lot if we can extend Greinke/Marcum or both. Then losing Odorizzi isn't felt. In the future signing free agent hitters should be much more successful than the pitchers we signed the past two years.

[Invader3K]

yfinn6, I'd guess they will try to work out an extension. I'm not sure how amenable Greinke will be after having just changed agents.

[yfinn6]

That would be one huge extension, money wise, I would think. To have Greinke and Gallardo locked up would be HUGE.

[PrinceFielderx1]

I tried to tell people not to count the Brewers out as a possible destination for Greinke. Doug Melvin's comments spoke volumes. He was quoted saying that 24 pitchers he looked into had no-trade clauses that included Milwaukee and that included Roy Halladay. He went from saying that to saying no-trade clauses can be worked around. His latest comment was recent and I smelled that something must have changed...

[YostInfection]

Somebody refresh me, without a Marcum extension, we get 2 years of him, correct?

 

Sounds like same would hold true here - 2 years of Greinke. Looks like Doug has a 2-year plan.

 

Both trades are WINS right now, even though we give up a lot for Greinke. If extensions are signed for one or both, it becomes a HUGE WIN.

 

As a General Manager, your charge is to put the best team out on the field year after year, and keep the future in mind. With extensions to both pitchers, he'll have done that. And the system is still decent at the CF and MI positions.

[Dmiles23]

I read up on this last night and was on the fence about this. But this morning I'm nothing but stoked. I get that a lot of people are nervous about how bare our farm system is, but the system could be re-stocked rather quickly. We have 2 first round picks in 2011. If/When Prince leaves, we'll most likely have 3 picks in the top 40 in 2012. And after 2011 the Brewers will have a decision to make with Greinke, if they don't feel they can re-sign him. They can either trade him after 2011 and possibly get some top prospects back, or they can let him walk after 2012 and probably get another 3 picks in the top 40 in 2013.

 

So they will have a big opportunity to restock the system rather quickly in the next few years. I understand those players will take time to develop, but we'll have players back in our system.

[radman12484]

I am down with 2 years of winning/playoffs/World Series, if it means that we will have a to deal with 2 to 3 years (or more) of rebuilding after that. Greinke, Gallardo, Marcum, Wolf......yeah me likey very much.

[wibadgers23]

Hard to believe we just went from having one of the worst rotations in all of baseball to having one of best after acquiring Greinke and Marcum. Can we start the season now?

[dlk9s]

The only piece I don't like giving up is Cain. Don't care about Escobar. Betancourt isn't good, but he's no worse than Escobar. Jeffress has promise, but as has been discussed, we have enough young bullpen arms. I know people don't like losing Odorizzi, but he's still "just" a low level prospect, so there's no guarantee that he'll be amazing in the bigs.

 

True, it sucks that we give up all these young guys under team control, but it's what you have to do sometimes. For me, the only one I think I'll miss within the next few years is Cain, but I am very happy to welcome Grienke to Milwaukee.

[Tedaldtada]

My take is that I would much rather take my chances with the elite pitching. Doug Melvin really is having a monster offseason. Hopefully Schafer can compete for the CF job in ST.

[Crew2323]

Jerry Crasnik confirms the trade

[Invader3K]

The Power 50 is certainly going to be tough to do right now if Odorizzi really was included, I'd imagine.

[yount19.u]

Wow, if this comes to pass our rotation looks great. Who now wants to take a chance on keeping Prince around through the All Star break to see if we can contend?

I think this trade assures that Prince will not be traded and we can expect to let him go for draft picks next year. The Brewers have gone from worst rotation to possibly top 5 in less than a month. What an awesome trade! Anyone think we'll still try and get Pavano or another pitcher?