is stupid. And the Redskins just trumped us by trading for Jason Taylor.

maybe that’ll help him with regular at bats

I don’t really see the point of a lot of the fuss you guys are having with the deal. If you look at it, we’re picking up Durham, a trusted veteran with some speed, contact, and some pop in his bat at age 36 in return for a soft-tossing starter who was 0-4 in AAA with a 7+ ERA and a speedy A-ball prospect who wasn’t batting above .260. I mean, Scott Podsednik ceiling? Sure.

Look at what the Brewers add to their bench. We can’t always acquire Sabathia, but I parallel this deal to the Red Sox in 2004 picking up Dave Roberts. Aging vet who’s seen it all, and a few clutch plays help the team in the long run. Let’s not write Durham off before he plays a game for us. I think it’s going to be pretty cool to have him, he’s a good player.

would be if Durham has agreed to turn down arbitration. Then we could offer him arb, he’d say no, we get picks. Someone in the other thread seemed confident he’d be a Type A FA, which would make it wonderful; even Type B might flip the deal in our favor.

That said, I think it’s unlikely that’s happened.

if durham is above replacement level for the rest of ‘08 it’s a win for the brewers.

talent like hammond and ford can be signed off the street. i’m really surprised to hear anyone say we gave up too much. there is a pretty good chance that neither of these two minor leaguers ever contributes to a major league team.

what relief pitcher could we have gotten back for Hammond and Ford? My major issue with the deal is that I think we need an upgrade in the pen as well and now we have traded away players we could have used to get pen help.

...I’d say that Durham is definitely a bad defensive second baseman, but that Weeks is worse. (Weeks is the worst second baseman in my ZR projections.) I’ve got IDs mapped to the RZR data finally, and I’m going to try to get RZR projections set up soon.

But I really don’t see how this move makes the Brewers better unless he’s taking playing time from Weeks, and I mean a lot of playing time. If you’re just looking for a bat on the bench, the Brewers have a ton of those guys in the minors who can hit, don’t they?

Durham had a provision in his contract that paid him $200,000 if he was traded, and Brewers GM Doug Melvin said his club picked up that cost. But a Giants source said that team picked up about half of the $3 million remaining on Durham’s contract.

Manager Ned Yost said he hadn’t thought it out yet but would probably play Durham at second base “a couple of times” a week. That obviously would cost Rickie Weeks playing time but Weeks kept a stiff upper lip about the deal and said he still considered himself the team’s second baseman.

I needed an excuse to update the prospect list anyway.

Durham wears number 5 and has for most of his career. I wonder if the Brewers let him take it. Probably, but usually they’d prefer to let the #5 sit vacant for a while.

At least it sounds that way in this article. Not announcing till after the game was Durham’s request.

Here’s his latest gem, uttered in defense of Rickie Weeks, which once again proves that he’s either a complete moron or he’s convinced that everyone else is stupid enough to buy what he’s selling.

“I wouldn’t say he has underachieved,” said Yost. “He has never been a .300 hitter (in the majors), so who says he is underachieving?’

“He’s working his way up. He’s getting better in all phases of his game. For me, he has never underachieved because he never achieved up here. How can you say he has underachieved?”

He’s competely right, of course, assuming that we were hoping for a .216 hitter when he was the 2nd overall pick in 2003. And it’s completely unreasonable to say that he’s underachieved offensively (though not defensively) since his nearly 100pts lower than it was in 2006, because you’re only underachieving if you were once a .300 hitter and aren’t hitting for that average now. What. An. Ass.

I think there is a general overreaction based in large part to people thinking that all “prospects” are truly prospects.

1. I will give Melvin the benefit of the doubt that neither of the guys traded project to be useful players. Fast guys that can’t hit or soft tossers can be found for nickels on the dollar.

2. In terms of projection, Durham doesn’t really add any wins to the team, but in an isolated case, he gives us that lefty bat so that we don’t have to send up Dillon or Counsell. I thought it was a mistake to trade Gross (warts and all) for this reason. Durham rectifies this to some degree.

(And I say this knowing that Durham is going to regress to the mean quite a bit if he plays enough.)

Bottome line for me is that a small useful part is worth a couple of non-prospects.

From Jim Powell’s blog:

The additions of Durham and CC Sabathia well before the July 31st trading deadline could ultimately prove to be a major factor in who makes the post-season in 2008 and who does not.

You can put whatever you want in from of “and CC Sabathia” in that sentence and it will still be true. For instance:

The additions of Mel Stocker, Greg Gagne, three shaman, 120,000 pounds of bluefin tuna, a partridge in a pear tree, and CC Sabathia well before the July 31st trading deadline could ultimately prove to be a major factor in who makes the post-season in 2008 and who does not.

From the infamous 39 On the Line (their agent’s blog):

I remember when I was first scouting Darren at Chipola JC while he was under control of the Brewers. They were playing TCC who had a raw leadoff hitter/centerfielder named Lorenzo Cain. At the time, the two had very similar games, however Darrens speed game couldnt be matched by anyone (and still cant in my opinion) The two were bitter rivals in college but after signing the two became the very best of friends in pro ball. It is going to be very strange not having that pair together anymore, and I know it is going to be hard at first for both of them. Thankfully Darren will still have ST in Arizona and of course there is the offseason. Their friendship has transcended baseball and I know both will be close for a very long time.

Not that it matters, but when I tried to trade for him, they wanted Manny Parra, Craig Counsell, and Matt LaPorta. And, we all know that video games are as close to real life as you can get. :-)

Not a bad move by the Brewers. They plan on converting Rickie Weeks to center field next season, or so the story goes.

I missed all the trade excitement because I was away from the intertubes for the weekend. I would have liked the trade that included Salome and Taschner even more. I swear everything big happens when I leave the internet.