Closser to Oakland for Charles Thomas

[robfuhr]

It was stated that it was a player friendly move...I agree with it what Melvin does and when other players see that Melvin will seek places for minor leaguer to play when they don't have much of a future with our club, it will only help the organization.

 

If you are just looking at who was traded for who, you are not seeing the big picture. This is not Fantasy Baseball, sometimes you make decisions that are not great for the organization in a strictly baseball term, but in the grand scheme of the organization it benefits the team.

[augie46]

This was a minor league trade. Nashville had too many catchers and needed outfielders. There are a million JD Clossers in baseball, we will be able to find another one or two if we want to this off-season.

[bsglorydays]

Catching is too hard to come by to trade Closser for an outfielder of no value, IMO. I would have much rather got a low level prospect for Closser than a guy that has zero chance of playing in the bigs with the Brewers (and he may even struggle to get playing time at Nashville, the way he is(isn't) hitting now.

 

This trade would make more sense to me if Closser was headed to Oakland, but he's not. Then it could be seen as a goodwill move by Melvin. But this is just a lateral move for Closser, with maybe a little bit less between him and the big leagues (considering Piazza was the 3rd catcher in Oakland's chain, and now Closser is - Closser was likely 4th in Milwaukee's chain).

[dadofandrew]

As Doug said, Closser had no future in MIL, barring 2-3 injuries. Now, he's one spriained ankle/hammy pull away. Doug has always been very kind to minor league vets who had a better future elsewhere. I wish we could have got a hard throwing kid in A ball rather than a Gwynn Jr. type minus the speed and defense, but Doug is not going to change.

[imblotto]

Closser is 27 alreadyhttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

[sbrylski]

At this point, Closser was hitting .188 in AAA and Thomas was hitting .230. Neither seems to be doing well at all, but I think I'd take the guy hitting over 40 points higher.

 

I was talking over their minor league career. Thomas has had just one season that could suggest he has a future. Closser had a few.

[litesrn]

As Al suggested, this appears to be a sop to a player to allow him to go somewhere where he can possibly make the majors. Melvin seems true to his word in this (well, maybe not in Capellan's casehttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ), and I see no reason to suspect anything more than that. Catching depth doesn't appear to be the issue it once was.

[MNBrew]

The coolest thing about the trade is that the organization is at a point where the debate here still mostly falls under the "duly noted" category instead of "5-alarm fire."

 

Regardless of how these guys profile, all their years and relative successes in the minors, they never really have produced in the bigs, and both have had their chances to do so. Both seem to fit the bill of prospects who never truly panned out.

 

It's quite possible they're both on the downsides of their careers. And if that's the case, the talk of ceilings and what they could contribute at the major-league level will really amount to more of a hindsight-based discussion. Sure, there could be a freak-ish, Keith-Osik-in-Milwaukee blip, but IMO this points to both guys as still being AAAA players at best, and possibly just AAA roster-fill.

 

Then again, if one guy has more a chance of making it than the other, it may be Closser, but only because catching depth is more sparse than outfield depth. So maybe it's not out of the question that Closser might still pop up as some bad team's backup catcher in 5 years. But it would seem that the odds of either guy making any sort of big league impact are quite low.

[brettac1]

Thomas has had just one season that could suggest he has a future.

 

He had it in the big leagues, though, and playing everyday (for half a season) on a team that was pretty good. Closser had a nice 100 AB stretch, and failed miserably when he was supposed to be the starting catcher. There's a reason the guy cleared waivers - he really isn't very good. Same goes for Thomas.