This would also be Gerut’s platoon buddy

See ya’ Cammy

that is about as little as i could have possibly imagined for him. how disappointing.

what the fuck?

I love Gomez! Whenever I go to Twins games, my friends and I make it a point to get on Gomez’s case. I think our razzing is what hurt his career in Minnesota. Now that I’ll be supporting him, his career will take off! Doug Melvin, you’re a genius!

When we get swept by the Twins in the new stadium next year I will be swearing twice as much. Is there a big salary delta that helps our payroll?

i’d take ANY of the other twins outfielders (i do love me some denard span). even delmon, who is officially a bust, showed some promise at some point.

or does this mean we can trade carlos back to the mets for johan?

We’re swapping players who need a change of scenery. Good news is Gomez is much cheaper. Now all the people who whine about Escobar needing to start can watch Escobar start. Two birds with one stone…

He might be a subpar player, who knows? At least we’ll have a chance to use Hardy’s salary for something else.

I always liked Gomez. He seemed to create a lot of opportunities and he was very fast. Dude was like a vacuum in CF. I guess this means Cam is gone?

throws some water on the “imminent” Grienke deal, eh?

Span will take over CF — Cabrera and Punto are bad at SS — Hardy lands in a good spot.

Our 2010 OPS probably just took hits at SS, and CF.

Our pitching situation is still iffy —

I was hoping we would get some pitching — even if it was not going to help us in 2010

I don’t think McGehee alone is enough to get a decent young pitcher, unless you start throwing in guys like Lawrie

I don’t think McGehee alone is enough to get a decent young pitcher, unless you start throwing in guys like Lawrie

We free up $10 mil from Cam and $5 mil from Hardy. Should be enough money in there to get a pitcher.

Plus side: He’s young, he’s fast, he’s good defensively, and he’s cheap, which allows us to chase some pitching.

Minus: He’s basically Kendall in CF with the bat. He’s not an efficient base stealer (though w/ macha, I don’t think that will matter much), and this gives us a bottom of a lineup of Gomez, Escobar, Catcher, and Pitcher. no one with any power threat back there what so ever.

Gomez takes some peculiar routes to the ball, and he can’t hit.

In case people were wondering about the free agent starter, there is a nice list <a href="http://This is much better than sticking anyone else in centerfield. I don’t think tis a downgrhttp://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/09/free-agent-market-starting-pitchers.html" target="new">here

“Hey Twins, do you have anyone who hits like a pitcher?”

if anybody shared the FanGraphs analysis on this yet:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/hardy-to-the-twins

could this be a move to free up money to extend Prince? Just a thought.

this was a move to help reduce the overall team payroll. Mark A had said he didn’t want it much higher than $90 MIL in the past, right?

Maybe if he spends a little less money this year, he’ll have enough left over to make another Sabathia-esque move when the time is right.

I wonder how much Rick Peterson had to do with this trade. Perhaps he told Doug that he’d have better luck going after the risky FA pitchers like Bedard/Sheets/Dusch/Harden, than any of the potential trade returns.

people expected that you’d at least be able to acquire a full-time player for JJ. I mean, its early November, and the World Series just ended. Is this really the best we could do? I understand that leverage is affected by the presence of Escober, but when JJ goes off against us in the six games vs. the Twinkies while Gomez sits and watches Gerut patrolling center, it isn’t going to be a fun feeling.

“our scout loved watching this guy” written all over it?

 2 years 141 days of service time. Mark Reynolds was three days short of Super Two status at 2.138.

Given his horrid offense arb probably wouldn’t help him too much anyway.

How is this guy different from Tony Gwynn Jr.?

what this moves does to the dreaminess of our line-up.

I mean, value-wise I don’t actually think this trade is that bad. Gomez is young, is a great defender, and has great speed – while Hardy just came off a pretty atrocious season (expecting to get pre-2009 value from him was overly optimistic I guess). And I guess this means Cameron is gone and we’ll be freeing up $10 million or so for a pitcher.

But, even given his defense, is Gomez better than Gerut…?

Gomez is equally mediocre at the plate against RHP and LHP, but Gerut has some pretty severe splits favoring RHP. I wonder if this means they’re going to do a straight-forward platoon (with Gomez playing against LHP and as a defensive replacement, though Gerut has plus defense too). Meaning, they need a platoon name!

I nominate “The Joker Jo-Car”

Melvin said he doesn’t see Gomez as a leadoff type. Instead, he thinks Rickie Weeks will stay in the top spot with Gomez down toward the bottom. WIth speedy Alcides Escobar and Gomez now in the lineup, I asked Melvin if he expects manager Ken Macha to run more. Macha showed last season he’s not an advocate of the running game.

Melvin said he did explore pitching possibilities with other clubs in exchange for Hardy but wasn’t offered anything tempting enough to turn down the Gomez deal.

Having traded Hardy for a centerfielder, Melvin did say he might have to explore the free agent market for pitching help. He mentioned John Lackey, the top pitcher on the market, but didn’t indicate he would pursue him.

Melvin did say he has contacted the agent for left-hander Mark Mulder, who has been sidelined for some time with injury problems. Mulder has a connection to new coach Rick Peterson and I expect the Brewers to sign Mulder to an incentive-laden deal to see if he can help next year.

Of taking a chance on pitchers such as Mulder, Melvin said, “We might have to do that.”

…meaning they can keep both McGehee and Gamel, and move Gamel to RF

With Gomez / Gerut covering center you could cut down on the defensive impact going from Hart to Gamel, although Hart isn’t going to win a gold glove any time soon either

From McCalvy’s twitter

“I’m too young to be a backup. If Milwaukee wanted me, they know I can play every day.”

Though I can see good in Gomez, it seems like he is going to be someone who is even more frustrating to watch than Hart as far as taking a walk is concerned. But I guess there is always the hope that he fulfills his “five-tool” potential and puts it all together in the next couple years.

I guess I am not as unhappy with the trade as most people seem to be. This seems like it is going to precede an interesting off-season though.

Miguel Olivo (a catcher with a .781 OPS last season and 23 home runs) is now a free agent, as the Royals thought that wasn’t worth $3.3 million. If he could duplicate those numbers in a Brewers uniform, then I’d be OK with this trade. We’d be getting essentially the same production for $10 million less.

Still, even if this frees up payroll, there’s very little to spend it on. This is how we got stuck overpaying for Jeff Suppan.

Because I’m really hoping I don’t get it.

Both Hardy and Gomez are plus defenders in crucial defensive positions. Offensively, in the worst year of his career, hardy still had a superior OBP to anything Gomez has put up thus far, and obviously hits for far more power. If you throw in a comparison for Cameron instead of JJ on the theory that Gomez is really replacing Cameron, the offensive loss is dramatically worse.

So while there are gains in the salary dump and years of control, it’s a negative almost everywhere else, and there aren’t any holes in the lineup to replace the production you’re giving up barring signficant offensive upgrades at catcher or RF. That seems sort of strange for a team that’s supposed to be committed to winning right now.

Without Cammy, do we still untuck’em?

would have been to wait to make this deal until after Nov. 20 (season ticket renewal deadline). They could have fooled us all into thinking Hardy-for-Greinke Soria Butler and Gordon was imminent. Well, maybe not that deal exactly.

Melvin was getting no decent pitching offers for JJ. His quote is along the lines of, “if you can’t get a pitcher, you get someone who can help your pitching staff defensively.”

The trade itself might work out ok if we get an offense-minded catcher. However, I have a hard time seeing the Brewers outbidding other teams for Lackey or the other “top” FA starters out there. Melvin trading out top chip for a non-pitcher could be his undoing, especially if we overpay for DD and Washburn and end up with 3 Suppans on our staff.

(well maybe not the biggest)

is that it’s unlikely we’ll have the wherewithal to trade for a pitcher. It sounds like it’ll be FA or bust.

Here is a list of free agents. Brett Myers might be worth taking a look at: he’s young (29) and isn’t godawful, even if his ERA has been on the rise for 5 straight years.

I’m not sure I understand the rampant dislike for Gomez. He’s young, has a lot of upside, and allows the possibility of acquiring better pitching for 2010 (with the Cameron/Hardy money) than if we had just resigned Cameron and traded Hardy for at-best back of the rotation or non-major league ready pitching. If you’ll allow me to once again completely abuse/mis-use stats:

Cameron (optimistically a 4 WAR player next season, given his age) + Perkins (not that people would have liked that trade either, but he was apparently what Hardy may have been worth) = around 5 WAR in 2010.

Gomez (let’s say he’s worth 2.0 WAR next year, arguably a pessimistic prediction given his last full season he was worth 2.3 and he’s obviously young/getting better) + Mystery 3+ WAR pitcher = over 5 WAR in 2010.

Can the Brewers sign a 3+ WAR pitcher with the Cameron/Hardy money? I don’t see why not, Sheets/Bedard/Harden are risks but when healthy are easily 4+ WAR pitchers with the potential for much, much better. Lacky, a name which has come up, has averaged over 5 WAR the last six seasons.

Given Gomez’s upside, Cameron’s age, and the available pitchers that can be bought with somewhere between $10-15 million, how is this not a good move?

Plus, the hate doesn’t make sense for a fanbase:
1) Whose best prospect is a relatively similar low-offense defensive phenom.
2) Who, 24 hours ago, were actually discussing (whether in favor of or not) signing Juan Pierre.

… in fear that he might take it now that we’ve got a CF on the roster?

Just like you guys. I’m glad we got a cheap player with upside, but I would’ve preferred a pitcher, just like you guys. I still maintain that JJ’s a top-10 MLB SS and that he will most likely be a much more valuable player (in terms of VORP/WAR) than Escobar next year.

Sheets is never coming back here. There’s too much history and he’ll get a much better offer than we’ll think (with much better information) he’s worth. Melvin, for all his faults, doesn’t have a history of overspending on major injury-risk players. He obviously prefers steady innings-eaters that may suck over the back-ends of their contracts. Similarly with Bedard/Harden, I don’t think they’re even on the radar. The price has to be right for injury-risks. I think RJ may be right on with thinking Doug Davis is in our future.

But not shocked.

I saw this DM quote from the Detroit Free Press:

In an e-mail to the Free Press after the deal was announced, Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin said he didn’t contact the Tigers about Hardy because they didn’t have what he sought in return. "I was looking specifically for a center fielder or pitching that was low (in) salary and low (in) service time," Melvin wrote. "I did not see a match so I did not call (the Tigers)."

All along I thought he turned to CarGo when he couldn’t find pitching. Now I wonder if he was always open to a Hardy for centerfielder swap.

..rec’d for good luck.