...but she thinks McClung is too fat, so that should give you a baseline ;)

How’d half my post go missing? I had said that nobody appeared happy with the results of the Linebrink trade-the relievers were still useless and in the end, no playoffs for the Brewers, no major-league-ready pitchers for the Padres-oh, well, draft picks are nice.

for example, I wouldn’t give up any of the main four AA position players for Sabathia. But for Greinke- whatever it takes.

A Gamel and Salome trade, but I’m not feeling the Gamel and Escobar option. Interesting thought, if Prince eventually gets flipped for someone, who makes a better 1st base option…LaPorta or Gamel?

If he goes to another team, we probably get a decent pick too, and maybe, just maybe, Gagne could be considered a Linebrink type free agent and we get even more.

Its so hard to visit because there are always numerous long protracted pissing matches over anything or nothing.

He wants to see them do away with the flag simply because we’re flying it, too? Awesome.

Jason Marquis, Eric Patterson, Rich Hill, Matt Murton and a few others can get Greinke, Harden or Sabathia.

I enjoy being the fan of the team with good prospects and little money more than I would being the fan of the team with loads of money and no prospects.

I didn’t have anyone in mind when I posted, and maybe there aren’t any quality relievers available. But if we’re talking about trading our top prospects for a rental, it seems like Sabathia would be less useful than a reliever this season.

Off the top of my head, the Mariners would probably be willing to discuss Putz, though I’m not necessarily saying that would be a good idea what with his injuries and performance this season.

You don’t sign relievers to long contracts, but even if we traded for Sabathia it would only be for the remainder of this season.

I get where you’re coming from. I’d be salivating over the chance to see the Brewers’ current class of hitters mature at the same time myself.

I will say this. My experiences, particularly over the last 4 years, tell me, if you’ve got the right chance in baseball, you have to take it. “Windows of opportunity” look a lot longer when you’re in the race and guys are healthy. Take the Indians’ 2007 vs. 2008 as a cautionary tale though: You really don’t ever know when your two of your three best hitters and two of your top three starters will all go down in the same season, and teams like ours don’t have the resources to fill those holes on the fly. I understand that you guys aren’t the ones pulling the trigger, but knowing what I know now … I get why the Brewers would do this, too.

As an aside, about Sabathia’s price: We’ve debated this at length over at LGT, and here’s what we came up with.

1. C.C.’s really, really good. I know this seems like a given, but he’s as likely as anybody to be the very best pitcher in the game over any given stretch of the season. The team that gets him is getting a healthy, high-strikeout, low-walk, high-innings guy in his prime who slots at #1 anywhere he goes.
2. He doesn’t have any no-trade protection. Meaning that (unlike with Santana) nearly every contender, irrespective of market size, is going to at least kick the tires on him. Why wouldn’t they? He can patch a hole in an rotation, or replace a 5th starter with an ace. So it’s not just a matter of making a fair trade, but there’s an element of out-bidding the competition as well.

Do I sound gleeful about all this? I hope not. It sucks. Everybody’s hurt and our best player is leaving town. But I think we’ll discover as the deadline draws closer that the question for the Brewers isn’t whether the price for Sabathia is going to be one of the top-tier, upper-level bats - it almost certainly will be - but instead whether 2008 is promising enough to take that chance.

Haha, that would be a curious return for the most valuable rent-a-starter at the deadline, inasmuch as we’ve already got Brad Nelson, and his name is Ryan Garko. Though I commend your chutzpah.

There’s no “ace” role on a team. Sabathia would effectively be replacing Bush or McClung, which would represent a HUGE improvement. 1/3 of a season from Sabathia means we drastically improve 10-12 starts—say at least 60 innings, maybe as many as 80.

A top-notch reliever like Heath Bell would also represent a huge improvement over the worst member of the pen, but probably wouldn’t get more than 20-25 innings. They’d be highly leveraged (one hopes), but that also depends on Ned managing the bullpen well … if somebody like Bell showed up, do you really think Mota/Gagne/setup man du jour would stop getting important 8ths? Or that newguy would go in in the 7th or 8th of tie games?

By contrast, I don’t think Ned would screw up giving Sabathia the ball every fifth day and letting him pitch for several innings.

Sheets is a much better pitcher aside from his “injury risk.” Wins are a useless statistic.

Can’t they just package them as a Player to be Named Later and agree on principle?

exactly how bad was Corey Hart’s defense during his two years at third base? Corey is good enough to fake center field right now and would likely manage to become at least adequate to league-average if he was playing the position fulltime, but right now I’d have a hard time envisioning Gamel anywhere close to that quality of defense. But it’s quite possible I’m underestimating the defensive dropoff between 3B and CF, so I’d be interested how Gamel and Hart compare during their respective stints at 3B…

In any case, I kinda sympathize with the “at least with LaPorta we’re closer to knowing what his defensive capabilities will ultimately be” part of baumann’s argument.

By “lefty ringer for Burrell”, I of course meant “righty ringer”, since Burrell is left-handed.

i also like what BK said about Gamel being a corner OF stretched as a 3B. those two points alone kind of tip the scale for me—that and realizing that i fall in love with/get attached to (way too easily) anyone that has an ‘advanced plate approach’.

at the same time, if Gamel’s athleticism makes him a RF of the future and LaPorta a 1B of the future, it would be pretty sick to sandwich Gamel’s lefty bat with LaPorta and Braun. that could be like 120 HR in the middle of the lineup for several years on end.

it doesn’t seem like we can go wrong by keeping these guys, or by trading one of them for a Greinke/Sabathia type. we are in a pretty good situation right now, it seems.