Gamel can play 3rd in the majors in the first place. One look at their (Gamel and Braun, since Braun is the usual comparison) minor league stats shows that Gamel appears to be cut from the same error prone cloth…or even from a much more error prone part. Braun was a butcher at 3rd…it’s not out of line to forecast Gamel being the same. So now we come to the same question we asked last year…where do we move him?

1B seems like the most logical place. And Prince is one player I don’t foresee the Brewers being able to retain for mostly financial reasons. That’s just a fact of the business…his price tag will be quite high when he hits FA. (It becomes absolutely impossible if you add Peavy to the mix as some fans want to). Add to that the fact that Prince’s trade value diminishes every year that they hold onto him. Mark Teixeira is a good example of that. The Braves paid through the nose in prospects to aquire him, and yet could get very little from the Angels when they rented him out for the 2nd half of last year.

I’m not sure the Brewers would want to move Hardy right now either. He hasn’t looked the best this season, and now that you add a back injury to the mix, you wouldn’t know what you were getting if you were a prospective trade partner.

As for Weeks and the situation at 3rd, nothing much was expected of Weeks this year. His production was a bonus, and all the projections were made with the assumption that he’d have another average but not stellar year. Also, we absolutely positively do not know what would have happened with Weeks the rest of the year….we’ll never know. He could have gone into a slump…maybe a short one…maybe a long one. There’s no guarantee he could have continued the production that he was putting up.

And as for 3rd base, depending on how the rest of Taylor Green’s season goes at Huntsville, it’s possible you could see him getting playing time in the majors next year as a mid-season/end of may call up. Either way, we’re stuck with Hall until the end of 2010 (assuming his production does not improve and the team exercises their 500k buyout for 2011). So if you don’t use him at 3rd…where are you going to play him? He’s an awfully expensive bench player. CF maybe as a stop-gap between Cameron and Cain? That’s about the only other place that makes sense. But now you’re lowering the level of defense up the middle…..and at this point we’re not sure if Gamel can be an improvement (or even play as well as Hall has been) over at the hot corner defensively…let alone good enough to offset the drop up the middle.

The idea of Fielder + something else in an easy one…pitching is more valuable. It’s harder to come by. Look at the Brewer’s starting lineup. 2 farm system pitchers vs. 6 farm system positional starters (assuming Weeks is the normal starter at 2nd)…7 when Rivera is catching. Pitching is harder to draft…so many are busts…or (in the Brewer’s case) get injured and take forever to recover..or never recover at all. So the idea that you have to pay more for good pitching isn’t outlandish. Fielder+ for Cain+ is what I suggested, if you go back and look. The extra outgoing value goes towards the fact that pitching has the higher value…especially for a team like the Brewers that has little in the pipeline.

I also realize that Jordan’s argument has some validity. You’re trading a 4 win pitcher for a 4 win hitter. BUT, and there is some assumption here, if Gamel can be a 4 win 1st basemen, then you’re actually making out better on the deal. If you add to the fact that Cain would replace a lesser starter in the rotation (we could only hope Suppan with his +0….maybe +1 above replacement), you’ve actually gained +3 wins with the trade. That’s assuming Gamel is +4 and Suppan would be the odd man out…neither of which would be guaranteed.