Aramis Ramirez trade rumors: Brewers 'probably would not' move 3B

The Brewers have third baseman Aramis Ramirez under contract for one more season and 16 million more dollars. The Brewers may have an opportunity to trade him this winter. But the Brewers won't trade him, at least general manager Doug Melvin says they "probably would not" entertain any offers, reports Tom Haudricourt.

Melvin says the team doesn't have a viable enough replacement for Ramirez on the roster to make him feel comfortable trading away their starting third baseman. So, two things:

1. The Brewers do not see Juan Francisco as a full-time starter, particularly not at third base

and

2. The Brewers still see themselves as viable candidates for a playoff spot

The second one is not a surprise. With Doug Melvin and Mark Attanasio at the helm, I'm not sure the Brewers will ever leave the mindset of, "well if all these things break our way, we might still be able to eke our way into the playoffs." I'm not saying they are right or wrong in this particular instance, but it's not surprising. If the Brewers didn't think they could compete, they wouldn't care so much about keeping an old guy on an expensive one-year deal if ditching him meant potentially getting even a small piece that could maybe help in the future.

The first one is, well, also not that much of a surprise. The Brewers used Juan Francisco as a starting first baseman for a lot of last season because he was the best candidate available. That's not praise for Francisco. That's an indictment of the Brewers front office's failure to bring in a competent first baseman. The team is chasing all of Logan Morrison and Corey Hart and Ike Davis and probably Yuniesky Betancourt to play first base. They don't have confidence in Francisco anywhere right now. The fact they tendered him a contract indicates that they see enough that he could change their minds, but they won't rely on him.

So, Aramis Ramirez will stay a Brewer. Unless, of course, the Brewers make another move to bring in a third baseman. But now we're thinking a couple moves ahead, so let's just listen to the nice Melvin for now.

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