If Fielder continues to dog it down the stretch I don’t see his trade stock being too high(even if there’s a small sample of what he can and can’t do).

We’d almost have to toss another top 5 or 10 prospect with Prince to get a Cain though.

What if Hardy IS the player to be named later, and Moustache worked out a clause that the Indians can get him only after the season? He is eligible for arbitration in 2009, and a free agent in 2011…

Cain’s stats vs. Gallardo’s stats.

It’s hard to say who’s better, because Gallardo has pitched far fewer innings. But they’re both righthanders who have a similar WHIP (1.26 vs. 1.27), K/9 (7.87 vs. 7.72), BAA (.248 vs .226), etc. As far as I can tell, Cain’s avoided the injury bug, which is no small thing. I guess if you would trade Fielder for someone like Gallardo, then you’d probably trade him for Cain.

Plus, there are other considerations:

• Our playoff window is fully open now, and slowly starting to close (i.e., players start to get too expensive to hold onto, and have to be replaced by those of unknown or unproven quality). We’ll see it after this season, when Sheets presumably becomes too expensive for us to retain.
• Cain is under team control through 2011, and relatively cheap (2009:$2.65M, 2010:$4.25M, 2011:$6.25M club option, though it’ll probably be closer to $8 million when it’s all said and done in 2011).
• Our pitching is going to be a real question mark if we lose our top 2 pitchers in CC and Sheets in the offseason, and another Gallardo injury away from a total disaster. Plus, if we make the playoffs this season, we’re supposed to be tough to play because we can throw two #1 pitchers in a short series. Gallardo-Cain-Parra is a lot more formidable than Gallardo-Parra-err, Suppan.
• Assuming he can’t handle the hot corner, we’ll need a place to put Gamel. (Unless we trade him too, in which case I’m stitching together a Doug Melvin voodoo doll and running it over with my car.) The only options are right field and 1st base. In 2009, right field only opens up if we don’t keep Cameron and slide Hart over (though if Gamel plays 2009 in AAA, then we can put him in right field in 2010). If Gamel is ready in 2009, though, and we use the option on Cameron (which I bet we do), then he either rides the bench or plays first.
• Fielder will probably make somewhere near $10 million in 2009. A Fielder/Cain trade will save us about $7 million. (Now that I think about it, I wonder if freeing up that salary would give us a shot at re-signing CC, given the departures of Sheets and Gagne. Imagine having CC, Cain, Gallardo, and Parra as your top 4 starters?)

A lot of this depends on how far along Gamel is, and how much we’re concerned about his late-season slump. If he’s ready now…I don’t have a problem with such a trade at all.

Quick! Change your mind!

And I’m not exactly calling for a trade, either, though I wouldn’t be too upset if it happened.

Still…looking solely at next season (and putting aside one’s feelings for Fielder, positive or negative), the argument for filling the holes for 2009 is a reason to trade Fielder this offseason instead of keeping him. In one trade, you obviate the need for another starting pitcher and gain $7 million in salary. On the flip side, if you keep Fielder, you’ll have to fork over his arbitration salary and STILL have pitching to worry about. I assume that’s what this baseball economic model is all about: milk the guys you have while they’re cheap, and when they get pricey, you trade them for your blue-chip prospects. Lather rinse repeat.

Given what we know of Prince already, the odds of him resigning with us after 2011 is (IMHO) next to zero. The question becomes when to trade them. If we can get Cain…well, maybe the time is now. Or do we hope for a better return next season?

Not to mention that Manny’s got a lower ERA, comparable IP and a higher K rate. Bush’s WHIP is lower this year and a by a significant margin, but I think the perception is that we’ve seen his best, which isn’t rhe case for Parra. A case can be made for Bush being in front of Parra in 2009, but I think the assumption is made because every time this team has hoped from something more out of Bush than being an acceptable 4th or 5th guy who’ll get close to 200 IP, they’ve been disappointed. So, when Brewerfans try to come up with a rotation they think can be competitive in 2009 based on the tools that are already in the box and the assumption that CC and Sheets are gone, hoping that Parra develops beyond where he is this year is the only way they can be hopeful that the 2009 rotation can be competitive.

Put another way, if Parra’s WHIP in 2009 where it is in 2008, it probably doesn’t make much difference where Bush and Parra are in the rotation because our SP is going suck.