Today In Brewer History: So Long, Eldred and Valentin

On this day in 2000 two long-tenured Brewers were traded away and one came back as Milwaukee dealt pitcher Cal Eldred and shortstop Jose Valentin to the White Sox for pitchers Jaime Navarro and John Snyder.

No Brewer pitcher started more games in the 90's than Eldred, who led off the game on the mound 169 times for Milwaukee and posted a 4.51 ERA over 1078.2 innings. Injuries had derailed his career a bit and allowed him to work over 100 innings just twice in his last five seasons, though. Eldred went on to pitch five more major league seasons as a member of the White Sox and Cardinals.

Meanwhile, in franchise history only Robin Yount has played more games at shortstop than Valentin, who came to Milwaukee in the Gary Sheffield trade and hit .240/.323/.421 in eight seasons with the Crew. His days as an everyday shortstop were almost over at this point but Valentin still played 916 more major league games as a member of the White Sox, Dodgers and Mets.

Unfortunately, the players coming back to Milwaukee did not have much left in the tank. Navarro was returning for a second tour of duty after being a Brewer from 1989-94, but pitched in just five games before being released. Snyder made 23 starts as a Brewer but posted a 6.17 ERA in his final major league appearances.

With help from the B-Ref Play Index, happy birthday today to:

• Neenah, Wisconsin native Rich Loiselle, who turns 41. Loiselle played six major league seasons between 1996-2001 as a member of the Pirates.
• 1981-85 Brewer Chuck Porter, who turns 58.
• Milwaukee native Joe Hauser, who would have turned 114. Hauser played six major league seasons between 1922-29 as a member of the Philadelphia A's and Indians.

Today is also the 31st anniversary of the Brewers selecting Chris Bosio in the 1982 January secondary draft. We covered that event in this space last year.