As we count down the days to spring training, it's got to be a stressful time to be a minor league free agent. As of yesterday the organization had 21 minor leaguers become eligible for free agency this winter and six have re-signed with the team, while two (infielder Josh Wilson and outfielder Brandon Boggs) have moved on to other franchises. Mitch Stetter and Sean Green signed with the Rangers yesterday. Eleven more, however, are still looking for work and for some of them this may be the end of the line. Here's a quick look at the guys who are still out there, according to Baseball America:

Mark DiFelice, RP (Age 35)

DiFelice has been a great story as he's bounced back from a couple of career-threatening injuries and a stint in independent ball, but he appeared in just three games as a Brewer last season and 17 more in the minors. He's 35 years old now and it's hard to believe there are too many teams looking for a pitcher who carries significant injury risks.

Felipe Lopez, IF (Age 31)

Lopez helped fill the gap for a little while when Rickie Weeks got injured this season, but played in just 16 games and hit .182/.245/.182 before being sent down to AAA. Lopez has played in the majors for six organizations in the last four seasons, leading one to suspect that no one is too excited about having him around.

Robert Hinton, RP (Age 27)

I almost feel like this has to be a typo - that Hinton signed somewhere but it wasn't announced publicly or something. I mentioned Hinton back in this post on MiLB FA's in November, but here's the short version: He's only 27 and posted a 2.47 ERA and 9.7 strikeouts per nine between AA and AAA last season. Unless there's something wrong with him he probably deserves an invite to big league camp somewhere.

Justin James, RP (Age 30)

James is a guy we talked a lot about at this time last year: He was a former indy leaguer who had an excellent season pitching in the minors for the A's and made his major league debut in 2010 before the Brewers claimed him off waivers. He was much less impressive in the minors for the Brewers in 2011, and now the indy leagues might be his best bet again.

Jordan Brown, 1B/OF (Age 28)

Acquired from the Indians early in the year, Brown played in 100 games for Nashville and put up solid numbers, batting .317/.340/.465 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Brown played 73 of those games in left field, and the fact that he's only a first baseman/corner outfielder probably limits his value. He's still reasonably young, though, so you have to figure he'll find work somewhere.

Brendan Katin, OF (Age 28)

Katin has been a very prolific minor league hitter over the last seven years (hitting .269/.337/.508 over 676 games), but the Brewers have left him in Nashville for each of the last four seasons so they mustn't feel like he has much to contribute at the big league level. He was limited to 34 games in 2011 by a knee injury, and may have to go to indy ball to prove he's healthy.

Zack Segovia, RP (Age 29)

The Brewers were Segovia's fourth organization in his ninth minor league season in 2011 and he posted a 3.98 ERA in 45 relief appearances for Nashville. He'll probably find a spot in someone's AAA bullpen again in 2012 if he's healthy.

Shawn Riggans, C (Age 31)

Riggans was invited to big league camp in 2011 but health issues prevented him from taking part, and he appeared in just seven games for Huntsville. He's a career .292/.353/.450 hitter in the minors, so he could go to indy ball with a chance to resurrect his career.

Chase Wright, SP/RP (Age 28)

The Brewers acquired Wright via a minor trade back in 2009 and he's pitched the last three of his eleven minor league seasons in the organization. He had easily his worst campaign in 2011, posting a 6.86 ERA over 28 appearances between AA and AAA and a WHIP only slightly below 2. The Brewers signed him to a minor deal with no invite to spring training late last offseason, and it's possible they could do the same this year.

Anderson Machado, SS (Age 30)

2011 was Machado's 13th minor league season and he hit just .141/.253/.188 in 36 games between AA and AAA. When you're capable of playing shortstop and even the Brewers don't re-sign you, the writing is probably on the wall.

Sam Narron, SP (Age 30)

2011 was Narron's fifth season in AAA and his fourth with Nashville. He has a career 4.81 ERA at that level and just 4.4 strikeouts per nine. He played indy ball briefly in 2010 and might be headed there again in 2012.

As morineko noted in this morning's Winter League Notes, Baseball America has the full list of players who became minor league free agents this week. The Brewers have 18 of them, which is roughly standard across baseball. The Marlins and Phillies have the most with 31, and the Cardinals and Royals are the only teams in single digits with seven and eight, respectively.

Many of these players are guys who were signed at some point during last offseason or during the year as minor league free agents, failed to reach the big leagues and are now eligible again. The rest are players who the Brewers drafted and have held on to for six years: Once a player's minor league contract has been renewed six times, their drafting organization either has to add them to the 40 man roster or allow them to test free agency.

As you might expect, the list of free agents across baseball is largely composed of organizational filler, non-prospects and veteran journeymen. A handful of the Brewers on the list are interesting, though, for one reason or another.

Brendan Katin

Katin is a guy we've been talking about as a fringe prospect for a while now. 2011 was his fourth tour of duty in AAA and he's hit .262/.330/.544 in 361 career games for Nashville, with 80 home runs. He only appeared in 34 PCL games this season and this story suggests he was struggling with a knee injury.

A year ago Katin was left unprotected for the Rule 5 draft and went unselected. Unless he really likes Nashville, he'd probably be best served by looking for a new organization this winter.

Robert Hinton

A 40th round pick out of high school in 2003, Hinton has been in the Brewer organization for a long time working almost exclusively as a reliever. His numbers have never been really flashy but he's always been pretty good at striking batters out:

Hinton is probably coming off his best season, as he posted a 2.47 ERA in 43 appearances between Huntsville and Nashville (mostly Huntsville). He's 27 and already an eight year minor league veteran but his ability to get strikeouts will probably get him another look from someone, if not the Brewers.

Darren Byrd

I wrote about Byrd a couple of weeks ago on his birthday. Here's the salient point:

2011 was Byrd's first full year as a reliever and it might have been his best pro season: He made 41 appearances for Huntsville (the first time he's reached AA) and posted a 2.95 ERA in 64 innings. He still walks too many batters (4.5 per nine innings), but this was only his age 24 season so there's still time for him to figure things out.

Byrd is 25 now, definitely not too old to be worth another shot as a reliever.

Here are the rest of the guys on the list:

• Pitchers Mark DiFelice, Sean Green, Justin James, Zack Segovia, Sam Narron, Mitch Stetter and Chase Wright.
• Catchers Patrick Arlis and Shawn Riggans
• First baseman Erick Almonte
• Shortstops Andy Gonzalez, Anderson Machado, Juan Sanchez and Josh Wilson
• Outfielder Jordan Brown

Many of the guys on this list will re-sign with the Brewers. In fact, some of them were minor league FA's who re-signed with the team last year. None of them would be a huge loss if they departed, although the Brewers would need to find a bunch of stopgap shortstops again. With that said, at least a handful of these type of players turn into useful parts every year.

So, if you haven't heard yet, Doug Melvin and the Brewers somehow managed to acquire Francisco Rodriguez--AKA K-Rod, AKA the record holder for most saves in a season--from the New York Mets.  In return, the Brewers will give up two players to be named later.  Right now, nobody save the Mets and Brewers have any idea who these players might be, though speculation is rampant that they will both be fairly inconsequential (which, to be honest, is about all Milwaukee has in their farm right now anyway).  If the speculation is true, though, none of the Brewers "big" prospects (re: potential grade B prospects) like Kyle Heckathorn, Tyler Thornburg, Mat Gamel, etc are at risk of leaving, which would be outstanding news.  It's late, let's do some bullet point quick trains of thought!

• I was just checking in to BCB before calling it a night when I saw this news.  The only thing that can describe how I felt:  Shock.  Then, maybe confusion.  That was followed by being upset about K-Rod not being a shortstop.  That was followed by elation when I saw the terms of the deal and how awesome the Brewers bullpen could potentially be.
• This news broke around midnight.  A lot of Brewers fans are going to be waking up to some great news tomorrow morning.
• Rodriguez's numbers this year: 3.16 ERA, 2.98 FIP, 9.70 K/9, 3.38 BB/9, 0.63 HR/9 AND he's doing all that well giving up an opponent BABIP of .342.  Prior to this year, he had never allowed an opponent BABIP above .300 in a full season, so I think it's reasonable to expect him to continue putting up very, very good numbers.
• Another stat this year for Rodriguez: 23 saves.  Now, there are a couple things to say about this.  The first, is how that relates to money.  As it stands, Rodriguez is slated to become a free agent at the end of this season.  However, if he reaches 55 games finished this year or 100 over 2010-2011, his 2012 $17.5MM option will automatically vest.  Rodriguez has finished 34 this year and finished 46 in 2010, which means he can't finish twenty more games or the Brewers will owe a significant amount of money.  The Brewers already received $5MM from the Mets in this deal, which will help pay off the rest of his paycheck this year and his $3.5MM buyout after 2011 (providing his option doesn't vest).  I see no way whatsoever that the Brewers plan to keep Rodriguez past 2011 (unless he takes a sever paycut) and they certainly won't pay him the amount that his option calls for. 
  
• Which leads me into this bullet point: What does this mean for John Axford?  My take: Nothing.  John Axford is and will be the closer.  Again, the Brewers will not let Rodriguez's option vest, so he can't close games.  Milwaukee hasn't had any of their other bullpen options closing ahead of Axford.  So I see no reason to believe that John isn't the closer still.  The only way he might be taken out of that role is if he has a very large fall from grace.  With how great he has been this year, I don't see that happening, do you?  Rodriguez has publicly stated that he is willing to be a set-up man on a contending team.  I think that's exactly why the Brewers went out and got him.
  
• Haha Cardinals
• Does this make the Brewers bullpen completely dominant?  If used right, I think it might.  Axford has been nothing short of outstanding this year.  LaTroy Hawkins and Takashi Saito have both been dominant when healthy.  Adding Rodriguez to them gives the Brewers a top four that can absolutely shorten games if the Brewers have the lead going into the seventh/eighth innings.  Kameron Loe has struggled recently, but if used more sparingly can still be a good asset in the 'pen.  Zach Braddock can also be very good.  But that new top four...wow.  Milwaukee could now have a different duo pitch every other day if they wanted and shut down their opponents for two innings.  That's a game changer.
  
• Generally, I don't approve of making trades for a bullpen piece (Scott Linebrink soured me on that), but for a team that stands as good of a chance as the Brewers do at making the playoffs, this was an opportunity that they had to take.  Their bullpen was one of their weak spots, despite Hawkins/Saito/Axford.  Adding Rodriguez all of a sudden solidifies that and makes it one of their strengths.  That bullet point making fun of the Cardinals may have been meant in humor for the most part but there is no denying that St. Louis' bullpen is dreadful and has cost them many a game.  The Brewers bullpen led the league in losses.  The Brewers improved their bullpen, the Cards did not.  Unless the Cardinals go out and trade for Heath Bell, this is a huge win for Milwaukee.  It probably would be anyway as Milwaukee's bullpen would still be better, and St. Louis would likely have to trade a much more highly touted player than the Brewers did. 
  
• I don't think this means the Brewers aren't looking for a shortstop.  They still will be.  If anything, I think this signals that Rafael Furcal might be a very definite possibility to end up a Brewer.  Like Rodriguez, he would likely be a salary dump by his current team (the Dodgers and Mets have both had their share of financial crises).  In the case of Furcal, the Dodgers also have no use for him anymore--they have Dee Brown starting at shortstop for the foreseeable future.  Acquiring Furcal would be a very, very similar deal to acquiring Rodriguez.  
• I don't care about any past transgressions Rodriguez may have committed as long as he doesn't do anything stupid in the next half a season and does his job while helping the Brewers reach the playoffs.
• I reserve the right to change my mind on whether I like this deal or not.  Right now, I like it a lot.  But when we find out who the prospects given up are, that could sway me into loving it or hating it.  I suspect that the Brewers aren't giving up any pieces of consequence.  If it turns out they are giving up someone like Wily Peralta or Mat Gamel or Kyle Heckathorn, I won't be nearly as happy.  Personally, I think that one of the PTBNL's might very well be Manny Parra and the teams have to wait for him to come off the DL before making his trade official.  I would be OK with that.

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The top three lefties on the Brewer bullpen depth chart before the season were Zach Braddock, Manny Parra, and Mitch Stetter. It is May 23rd and all three are on the DL, and the Brewers are rolling with the rare all right-handed bullpen, which I didn't expect to last this entire week.

In response to this situation, the Twitters are buzzing about news that the Brewers may have claimed the most interesting possible available lefty (this side of Rob Swindle): former Red Danny Ray Herrera.

• He's 5 feet 6 inches tall.
  
• He throws a screwball.
• Do you really need a third reason?

Hererra has thrown 92 major league innings in his career, with 6.5 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9. In his career, he's allowed opposing lefty batters a line of .206/.270/.284. As a LOOGY, he's probably better than Stetter at this point. He's not too strong against righthanded batters, but he's also not completely useless facing them. 

The fun part is his stuff. Herrera isn't going to throw any harder than 85, but you'll see a slider, change, cutter, and a screwball in addition to the straight fastball. A screwball! The pitch f/x algorithms classify it as a changeup as far as I can tell-- one with some extreme movement and 68 miles per hour velocity. I'll do more investigation if he does end up pitching for the big league club, but that's a spectacle.

The screwball's movement should make it an extremely effective pitch, but as far as I understand, the hard part is hiding it because it requires a different throwing motion than most other pitches. He's had some success with it though, it's been worth about 6 runs above an average changeup in his career.

At this point, I have no idea if the Brewers just plan to add him to the 40-man and stash him at Nashville for depth at lefty reliever, but I would doubt that. They already have the top three lefty relievers on the DL, so if a fourth-string lefty was going to ever pitch in the majors, it'd be now. He's been pretty successful at AAA for the Reds this year so I think there's a decent chance he could join the team this week or even today if this news is in fact true. And if it's not, well, disregard, and somebody give Swindle a call.

Running a mediocre mid-market team is hard. That sounds like snark, but I'm serious. When you have $150 million to play with every year, like the Yankees or Red Sox, you can fill just about every hole with a free agent and then win 90 games. If you're in the $50-$60 million range, everybody knows you have to rebuild.

But the middle is trickier. Think about the 2008 Brewers: They had the advantage of several above-average below market guys, so money could be spent filling holes, on guys like Mike Cameron and Salomon Torres (and ultimately C.C. Sabathia), and the team could afford to keep a great player or two around, as was the case with Ben Sheets.

That's the framework we have to use to evaluate Corey Hart's deal. It's not hard to make the case that Hart could be worth his $26.5 million, while of course it remains to be seen how he'll produce for the next three years. That much money should buy about five or six wins on the open market, and I'd guess he'll be worth about that. But given that the 2011, '12, and '13 Brewers will only have payroll space for so many guys priced at open-market levels, should Hart be one of them?

The deal in a vacuum

The structure of the deal, it appears, is a $1MM signing bonus, $6.5MM next year, $9MM in 2012, and $10MM in 2013. Because baseball salaries drift ever further upwards, those numbers will feel a little lower come '12 and '13, especially if the economy rebounds. In comparing the yearly salaries to current players, it may be more helpful to think of it as $8.5MM and $9MM for the last two years.

At what is essentially $9MM per year, Hart is being paid as a two-win player, or slightly better than one. In Wins Above Replacement (WAR), as in everything else, Hart has been crazily unpredictable. This year, he's been worth 2.8 WAR, putting him on pace for about 4 by the end of the season. His breakout season in 2007 was worth 4.9, but the next two years were 0.9 and 1.4.

So who is the real Corey Hart? I wish I had an answer to that question. His strikeout and walk rates haven't changed much. His line drive percentage has stayed the same, so this year's boost in BABIP may be attributable only to luck. He is hitting more fly balls, and more of them are leaving the park--there's probably something skill-based going on there.

So, weaselly as it is, I have to conclude that the "real" Corey is somewhere in between this year's All-Star and the 2008-09 disappointment. The most recent CHONE projections forecast him as a 2.4 win player (per season), and that seems about right to me. He'll probably be "worth" his contract, but it's unlikely that the deal will turn out to be a major coup for Milwaukee.

The deal in context

That brings us back to the bigger picture. The fact that Doug Melvin held on to both Fielder and Hart at the deadline suggests that he may think the team is set up to contend next year. If so, perhaps he did everyone a favor by saving a bit of money on Hart's last arbitration year.

In the long term, the bigger question is what I opened this post with. A mid-market team is going to pay the going free-agent rate for some of its players. If the Brewers contend in, say, 2012, that will be the case in Milwaukee. But should Hart be among them?

This is a very difficult question to answer, since it depends on how certain prospects develop and who is available in the '11 and '12 free agent classes. A definitive analysis would have so many "maybes" that it would be almost worthless. But my gut says that Hart is not worth market rate to the Brewers.

Here are two of the reasons why. First off, he plays an unimportant defensive position. To me, right field, left field, and first base are kind of like the bullpen. If you can get a super-premium player (like Fielder or Braun), you should--it's like having Mariano Rivera pitching the 9th inning. It's worth the big bucks.

But Hart is not a super-premium player. Just as a good GM can usually find a solid 7th- or 8th-inning guy for peanuts, he can find a corner outfielder able to do the job. Even some rich teams believe this. Over the last 10 or 12 years, the Yankees have had some stars at 1B, LF, and RF, but they've also had 90-win teams with very pedestrian players there.

If it turns out that the Brewers do need a right fielder going into the 2012 season, there will probably be one on the open market. Sometimes it's hard to find a solid catcher or shortstop, but there are always decent corner outfielders available.

The other reason is that with Braun locked in to left field, the Crew has blocked a lot of potential paths for prospects. Mat Gamel may be a corner outfielder. Brett Lawrie may have his future there. Heck, if Caleb Gindl keeps advancing, he'll be stuck in a corner. If Fielder gets swapped for prospects in the offseason, there may well be more guys in the system who can't stick at their primary position.

An overload of quality players at a certain position can be written off as a good problem to have, but it's a less good problem in a corner. Except for super-premium players, teams have what they need--every other club (even the Astros now) has good-hitting prospects drifting down the defensive spectrum. That makes the trade value of a right fielder less than you might think. It's rare that someone is desperate for a right fielder.

All together now

The point isn't that Lawrie is blocked. Or that $9MM to Hart will hamstring the Brewers chances of signing somebody good in the next two years. (Though it might be the straw that breaks Mat Gamel's back.)

The point is that Doug Melvin locked himself into a commitment he didn't need to make. Hart is not the face of this team, and his presence isn't going to sell 250,000 more tickets. He's a complementary player, and first half aside, that's his future.

In 2012, it's unlikely we'll point to the Corey Hart deal as the reason for another 3rd-place finish. Maybe Corey will have another .290/.330/.500 season and appear to be worth a bit more than the money he's paid. But maybe we'll have parted with a prospect by then, or left him to rot in Triple-A. Or perhaps we'll have passed on 2012's Bobby Abreu, an all-star player available for $5MM on a one-year deal.

Mid-market GMs have more freedom than their small-market counterparts, but they still must do whatever they can to retain their flexibility. They don't have enough money to solve every problem by writing a check, so they must find other ways to build contending teams. By locking up a pretty good player at the going market rate, Doug Melvin just cost himself a fair bit of flexibility. And he doesn't have much to show for it.

Let's get this out of the way first: Randy Wolf is a good pitcher. In his career he's put up a 4.28 FIP and in the past three years he's been at 3.99, 4.17 and 3.96. He seems to have become a better pitcher in his late 20s and early 30s, which is nothing uncommon for a left-handed starter. In comparison, Jeff Suppan's career FIP is 4.85. There has really been no point in which Suppan has ever been as effective as Wolf.

Wolf has varied a lot as a pitcher throughout his career. He's averaged about 7 strikeouts to 3 walks per nine innings in his career, but that rate has jumped around-he's gone over 8 strikeouts per 9 at times and last year he was below 7 K/9, but he lowered his walk rate as well, resulting in the impressive 3.96 FIP.

You can find plenty of information about Wolf's stuff elsewhere, so I'll just touch on two things-- his fastball averages about 89 (which is just better than average for a lefty starter) and is very effective, Fangraphs pitch values show that it was 30 runs better than an average pitch last year, which is elite. His out pitch is a really slow curveball-if you thought Dave Bush's 70 mile per hour curve was slow, be prepared for Wolf to bring it around 66. That pitch was 9 runs above average last season.  

Wolf does come with some durability concerns. He was quite durable early in his career and then had 4 straight years of some injury trouble with Philadelphia. He followed that up with seasons of 190 and 214 innings. So in terms of pitchers with durability concerns, he falls somewhere in between the Rich Harden/Ben Sheets/Erik Bedard class and the Durable Innings Eaters.

The risk in giving Suppan the contract he was given was that he would not remain effective over the course of his deal, and that risk was realized: after 1 year of decent performance, he has put up 2 years of approximately replacement-level production. That should not be a problem with Wolf. If he manages to average 180-200 innings over the next 3 seasons, he should easily justify the contract. In terms of personal preference, I would much rather gamble on a good pitcher remaining healthy than gamble on a durable pitcher remaining effective.

There's no doubt that the Brewers had to go above what Wolf's probable worth on the market to get him to come to Milwaukee. The Brewers decided that he was their man and went out of their way to get him. I personally have no problem with what they did. Expecting them to set a maximum seems pretty unrealistic to me. If you set your maximum at $9 million per year and Wolf's agent indicates that it will take $10 million, do you tell them no deal? Considering that sources said Jon Garland (who, like Suppan, has never really been a good pitcher) was the backup if Wolf didn't accept, I am glad they did what they did.

After saying what I said about Wolf's ability, I think he should be projected for something like a 4.20 ERA and 180 innings this year. Expecting him to repeat last year's performance of 214 innings and a 3.50 ERA is unrealistic-first the flaws of ERA, a team statistic that is vulnerable to chance, must be considered and beyond that there's Wolf's .250 BABIP allowed and high strand rate, which show that he did not deserve the ERA that he accumulated. Fortunately, paying a pitcher $10 million really only assumes his value to be a slightly above average pitcher. Average for a starter is around a 4.5 ERA. With the Wolf projection I mentioned earlier, he's worth around $10 million in free agent dollars. There's an upside there of his production last year, which makes him worth a bit more. There is an injury risk, as there is with any pitcher.  

Giving any pitcher a 3-year deal is risky. But to win the Brewers need to be a little bit aggressive. If you project every starter on the market to account for their production and ability to stay healthy, you would probably conclude that Wolf is the second best pitcher on the free agent market right now. And he's now a Brewer. That's good news any way you look at it. There's a good chance that Wolf will not be worth $10 million in 2012, but that's a risk the Brewers are willing to take here to secure a pitching staff that they think can compete in the next two years while Prince Fielder is still under team control.

I definitely have some concerns about decisions the team has made this offseason-the other signing of today, Latroy Hawkins, included (which I'll have more on later)-but I do like this deal overall. There might have been other ways of improving the pitching staff, but I can definitely see why Doug Melvin chose to go in this direction. This pitching staff just got substantially better and the team did not have to give up a draft pick or a player to do it, and there are a few other interesting trading pieces (Corey Hart!) on the roster. I would rather the Brewers potentially risk spending $10 million on $5 million worth of production in 2012 than just throw in the towel and not make a move.

We've got Carlos Gomez now.  I haven't looked really closely at his numbers, but my first take is that it's a fair deal.  The Twins get a somewhat better player for 2010 in J.J. Hardy, but we get someone who is cheaper, fills a hole, and might improve while still under team control.

But...reasonable people can disagree, and evaluating the Hardy-Gomez deal isn't my point.  [Jordan just published some interesting thoughts on the deal.  Even though I've rudely buried his post, go read what he has to say.]

Instead, I'd like to suggest that, against the sudden, unanimous conventional wisdom, we still re-sign Mike Cameron.  (I haven't read through all the comment threads yet, so I apologize if I'm repeating somebody else's idea.)

Here are some things to consider:

1. Cameron is undervalued.  (Yes, I know I'm opening up another can of worms here.)  He's an elite defender, he has aged well, and he may be willing to come back to Milwaukee at a discount.  If we can sign him for less than or equal to what we paid last year, we've got a deal.  A much better deal than we'd get spending an equivalent amount on pitching.

2. Cameron or Gomez can play right field.  The Mariners have shown the value of having elite defenders in more than one outfield spot.  Cameron has played corners in his career.  Center field prowess translates pretty reliably to corner outfield prowess.  For those of you with a statistical bent: The positional adjustment would change, but a +10 CF would probably be +15 or so in right, so it would come close to evening out.

3. Outfield defense is important.  Suppan is a fly ball pitcher.  Looper is a fly ball pitcher.  (Though most of his fly balls are out of reach.)  If we sign Washburn, there's another one.  If we're shopping for mid-rotation guys, fly ball pitchers aren't necessarily bad--IF we have an elite defensive outfield.  It would make Doug Melvin's job easier, actually: Ground ball pitchers are generally more valuable than fly ball pitchers since teams stick Adam Dunn and Manny Ramirez in the outfield.  (And other reasons, but I don't want to digress.)  So having the freedom to sign fly ball guys would give Doug some flexibility.

4. Corey Hart is getting expensive, and he is not necessarily very good.  Unlike with Hardy, I don't have a ton of faith Corey Hart being a valuable part of a contender.  Yet, his name reliably comes up in trade rumors.  Maybe Hart + Gamel will get us that starting pitcher.  It's tough to gauge this from the outside, but I get the impression that we could receive fair value in a Hart trade.

5. Worst case scenario, we've added Gomez as a fourth OF.  Maybe we can't trade Hart, but payroll hasn't really gone up.  Then, depending on how the season goes, we can flip Cameron or (more probably) Hart to a team that develops a need.  The outfield would be crowded, and it would prevent a Gamel move to right field, but too much talent isn't a bad thing, and I don't get the impression Gamel is shagging fly balls this offseason anyway.

Like most of my offseason proposals, I don't think this is what Doug is going to do.  But I think it's what he should do.

• I like the acquisition of Gomez, before we start putting any context on this trade. He's a ridiculously good defender, one of the best centerfielders in the game due to his tremendous speed and range. Being an elite defender gives him plenty of value before even looking at his offensive contributions. There's a tendency to group together "good centerfielders"-- but there's a big difference between the tier of guys like Tony Gwynn Jr., Juan Pierre, and Jody Gerut, and truly elite defenders like Gomez.
• Gomez, right now, is not a good offensive player. He's been basically a replacement-level hitter in his time in the big leagues so far. That does not mean he's been a replacement level player, though, because his stellar defense has made him worth between about 1 and 2 wins in his two full seasons. He has a career .286 wOBA, and the league average is around .333-- and wOBA includes stolen base contributions. His career slash line is .246/.292/.346.
  
• There's reason to believe that Gomez has a much bigger offensive upside. He was a very highly regarded prospect in his day, and a major piece in the Johan Santana deal. In A-ball as a 19 year-old, he .275/.335/.380; then he came in with a .281/.350/.423 line at AA at age 20. He was bumped to the majors by the Mets at age 21 after hitting .271/.353/.361 in AAA. He's been in the majors since then, with that completed year and two more with the Twins, and hasn't cracked a .300 OBP. Just based on his profile, it has to be possible that there's an upside of even a .320-.330 OBP and .350 SLG this year, which would go a long way towards making Gomez a much more valuable player. He'd practically be an all-star if he was a league average hitter, but that's probably too much to ask for at this point. He'll be here for four years, though, so there's still hope.  
  
• Gomez is a lot of fun to watch. I usually don't get caught up in that type of stuff, but I always found it amusing to see him take a monster hack at a pitch and almost corkscrew himself into the ground, and then bunt on the next pitch. And his energy on the basepaths and ability in center will keep us entertained.
  
• In terms of total value, this deal is pretty close to an even match. The expected value of Hardy's production over his salary in the next two years is very close to the amount of expected value of Gomez's production over his salary in the next four years. That's a strategy for a team that doesn't expect to be in contention for the next two years, however, so it doesn't quite make sense to me why the Brewers chose to do this type of deal. I'm just going to go ahead and quote Graham from Lookout Landing, who was disappointed that the Mariners didn't beat the Twins asking price for Hardy: In terms of money/talent, the deal makes a good amount of sense for both sides. The Twins get a big upgrade at shortstop, the Brewers deal from depth to cover a weak position (albeit not that well) for free, and have some more money to play with in free agency. As the return for a guy like Hardy, Gomez the talent is rather underwhelming, but the financial flexibility he provides is useful. Could/should the Brewers have gotten more for him? Yes. But they didn't, which is where this deal becomes weird from the Milwaukee side. They had an asset which had less value to them than to the rest of the league, but they sold him for his value to them rather than anyone else's, which is not the best trading strategy in the world.    
• The Brewers did everything wrong in their handling of Hardy. The last line from Graham pretty much sums up what I think-- they sold Hardy at the value to them rather than his actual value. The whole situation has been bizarre-- sending him to AAA and promoting Escobar to shake things up when there was no real reason for doing so expect gaining a year of service time that apparently increased his value to... Carlos Gomez. Yes, Hardy had a bad year. Projecting him with a weight of 3/2/1 for the last three seasons still gives a 2-3 win player with 5 win upside easily. Even at his worst, last season, he was better than Gomez was last year. And maybe the strangest part of this deal was the huge rush. It happened two days after the World Series, and Doug Melvin admitted he didn't even call a team with a shortstop shortage, the Tigers, much less the rest of the league. Not only did he sell Hardy at the absolute lowest point of his value, but he managed to pull the trigger so quickly there's no telling what might have happened had he held on longer. I doubt the Twins would have pulled their Gomez offer from the table.
  
• Melvin didn't even touch the pitching staff with his biggest trading chip, and downgraded the offense. Sure, the extra savings from Hardy to Escobar and Cameron to Gomez give the Brewers some money to throw at a free agent pitcher. But that's not the logical way to look at it. Say the Brewers had accepted the apparent Red Sox offer of Michael Bowden for Hardy. Bowden, at the mininum, makes even less than Gomez next year, and Hardy's salary is gone either way. In this situation, with even a little bit more money to play with, they could re-sign Cameron to play center for maybe 1 year, $8-10 million because they don't have to worry about another pitcher-- or they could sign a righty centerfielder like Reed Johnson to platoon with Jody Gerut, a platoon which would project about the same as the Gomez and Gerut situation going on right now, in 2010 at least. Gomez is a better bet for the following three years, but remember that Lorenzo Cain and Logan Schafer are coming and might have been able to fill in the gap by 2011. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Would we rather be looking at a rotation of Gallardo, Parra, Bowden, Bush, Suppan with Cam in center and an extra $5 mil, or that same rotation with Gerut/platoonmate in center and $15 million to throw at Erik Bedard, Ben Sheets, Rich Harden, or Justin Duchscherer? Again, it's such a strange idea to throw your most valuable trading chip at a really slight position player upgrade for 2010. It just looks like he's playing for down the road. If salary relief is one of the good parts of the trade... well, non-tendering J.J. would have gotten salary relief too. Getting Bowden would have accomplished the same thing. I don't know why we have to consider this a positive in the trade.
  
• I really like the idea of getting Gomez here. He's a nice piece to have. Not for the price of Hardy, though. And I don't understand the way Doug Melvin handled this situation overall. He could have done so much better. I'll wait to judge his offseason until we see if the available money is handled the right way. One thing I will say now-- I hope the moves will be with a consistent goal in mind. Spending the money on starters like Washburn, Piniero, and Marquis would probably not upgrade the team enough to justify the spending and commitment, which is why I suggest 1 year deals for injury-prone pitchers. And if they do decide to target a pitcher, I hope Casey McGehee is more likely to be traded than Mat Gamel. Acquiring Gomez and dealing Gamel would probably indicate a confused set of goals about when the team's window of contention is.