UPDATED BELOW!!!!!!

With all the hubbub surrounding Roy Halladay I thought I’d chime in (again) on trading for him.

As of right now the Crew is 2.5 games out of first place in the Central and 2.5 pitchers out of a halfway decent starting rotation. Getting Halladay would be pretty much exactly the same as C.C. Sabathia in the “pitching godsend” department. I would hope that Halladay would propel the Brewers to a second-straight playoff berth,

But are you ready for years of mediocrity afterward? Take a look at Brewers 2010 contracts if Halladay’s traded:

Halladay: $15.75m
Jeff Suppan: $12.5m
Prince Fielder: $9m
Bill Hall: $8.4m
David Riske: $4.5m
Total: $50.15m

Assuming the Brewers’ payroll sticks around $85-90 million, you have 60% of your payroll stuck in five players. None of this even takes into account the arbitration salaries of Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, Dave Bush, etc. Of course this assumes Alcides Escobar is traded to the Blue Jays, as Hardy wouldn’t since Toronto wants the younger, cheaper talent.

With the money we wouldn’t save, we’d definitely wouldn’t be able to resign Mike Cameron or Jason Kendall when they hit free agency at the end of the year, meaning there would be a replacement-level CF and Mike Rivera behind the plate to begin 2010. In addition, next year’s rotation would be Halladay, Suppan, Parra (IF he’s not traded to the Jays), Bush, and Gallardo with no available depth in AAA and no prospects to speak of or depth in AAA in case someone gets injured. That rotation looks good on paper, but the only pitcher without an injury history is Halladay. I wouldn’t trust it to last an entire season.

The current core of young talent the Brewers probably won’t keep (Hart, Hardy, maybe even Weeks) begins to phase out at the beginning of 2011, so the Brewers could be entering a rebuilding mode if their current prospects take the Jeremy Jeffress route and don’t pan out the way they planned them to. They’ll be Blue Jays if the Brewers get Halladay, meaning that a prolonged slump in 2011 is inevitable. Are you prepared to sacrifice the well-being of the ballclub 2-3 years down the road if the Brewers try to add 1-2 wins to this year’s team? Is 1-2 wins going to be enough to win a mediocre division in 2009?

I couldn’t tell you that, but throwing away millions of dollars in worthwhile talent to satisfy this year’s needs aren’t worth it in the long run. It’s too much of a long shot at this point to justify trading for Halladay; if the Brewers didn’t have as many holes as they do now the trade would definitely make sense.

One thing that’s never been mentioned was how awful last year’s offseason went for Milwaukee. Remember how C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets were going to net the Brewers 4 first round draft picks in last year’s draft. After both Mark Teixiera and Sabathia both signed with the Yankees, an odd MLB rule only netted the Brew a supplemental first rounder. When nobody signed Sheets because of his injury, the Brewers didn’t get any compensation. Going 1/4 is never going to help bolster a weakening farm system.

Trading for Halladay would turn the 2011 Brewers into the 2001 Brewers, basically.

UPDATE: Reports are just confirming that Matt Holliday was just traded to St. Louis for a package of prospects including Brett Wallace. This trade makes the Cardinals without question a legitimate contender and sacrifices their future; Wallace is an up-and-coming phenom. More reason to hang on to prospects now, because in 2011, this division is going to be even more decidedly mediochre. Neither the Cubs nor the Astros have farm systems either, so in a couple years it may be a three-horse race between the Reds, Brewers, and Pirates.

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Brewer stuff, milwaukee brewers by Cody