Brewer Paradise Lost

With the recent lukewarm streak the Brew Crew have been on, I’ve become a little more optimistic about this season, despite the pedestrian loss last night. Even though the playoffs are a distant memory, there’s no reason not to be a happy Brewer fan. Here are a few things I’m grinning about as the dog days of August turns its exhausted head…

1) Doug Melvin did the right thing by standing pat at the trade deadline. This is a little bit late, but Melvin and company did nothing to address the thin pitching outside of getting Claudio Vargas from the Dodgers. This is a bit late, but Milwaukee’s pitching was too barren to justify overpaying for one pitcher and to sacrifice prospects for pitchers who weren’t a sure thing in the first place.

Melvin said the main reason a trade deal for a pitcher wasn’t made was because the Brewers had very few pitching prospects to give up and that’s the return most teams wanted for a starting pitcher. This makes sense. But, when teams want the starting pitching, and you don’t have any… you’re getting back 25 cents on the dollar for each other prospect since they’re not as imperative to the deal.

Melvin’s clear history in valuing prospects and bargain bin deals over expensive free agents means he’s not willing to get such a low return on them even if it compromises the quality of this year’s team. Strategies like that for a mid-market team like the Brewers are necessary if they’re going to be able to become any kind of perennial playoff team.

2) 2009 isn’t looking too bad. Despite last night’s loss, the Crew are only five games out. While they’re still technically sliding deeper down into the NL Central basement, BP’s playoff odds think they’ll only have a four percent chance at making the postseason. But there are still a high chance that the Brewers make a run at it, even if they don’t make it to the postseason.

Admit it, if the Brewers were 2 games out of it come the final week and they don’t make the playoffs, 2010 is going to be a really fun year to watch, as the core of the team will feel they need redemption for it. It’ll just make next year that much more entertaining and fun to watch.

2010 isn’t looking too bad either. In his chat transcript he had earlier today, Tom Haudricourt recommended changing up the lineup in 2010 to include resigning Felipe Lopez to a deal this offseason and moving Rickie Weeks to center field to make up for the loss of Mike Cameron and trading J.J. Hardy for major-league ready starting pitching.

I am the Brewers’ GM. This is what I do before Opening Day 2010: Trade Hart and Hardy and any prospect not named Gamel or Escobar for some starting pitching. There certainly isn’t any coming through the system right now. I’d re-sign Felipe Lopez to play second, move Rickie Weeks to center, move Mat Gamel to right and install Casey McGehee as my third baseman and Alcides Escobar as my shortstop. I’d sign Kendall for one more year and let him tutor Angel Salome in a backup role. I’d take that team to battle and see what happens.

This actually would be an interesting strategy, but the pitchers are going to have an awful time on the mound if Weeks’ athleticism doesn’t translate into immediate success, because starting two thirds of your outfield by guys who have never played before isn’t going to be an incredibly smooth transition.

Another reason this strategy might now work is because Melvin would be trading Hardy for cents on the dollar due to his unproductive 2009 so far (unless he can turn on the jets for the last couple months of the season). Unless Melvin can get teams to realize Hardy’s true value, it wouldn’t be right to blast him away for some marginal prospects when Escobar still might not be major-league ready.

I’ve written before on why I think Hardy is one of the top-10 shortstops in MLB and that Alcides Escobar isn’t quite major-league ready yet. Things will obviously change between now and 2010, so Hardy could really get hot and zoom up his trade stock, but as of this post, let’s assume he’ll finish with a .227/.298/.367 line with plus defense at short.

A viable trade deadline next year could be this: Hardy remains a Brewer this season after a 2009 (he won’t come too expensively as he enters his final year of arbitration), while Escobar’s bat gets some more seasoning in the minors. Hardy rebounds a little bit, and scouts start really liking him again. The Brewers then trade him off for whatever pieces are needed to make a playoff push next year, and with a Lopez-Weeks-Braun-Fielder-Gamel lineup, pitchers shouldn’t have too much of a problem staying in games.

I mean, this is all hypothetical hearsay, but that really could get Doug Melvin just as much return on Hardy as trading him before his final year of arbitration. Trading Hardy and replacing him with another piece that should be nearly as good while getting a different kind of brilliant return seems like the shrewd move Doug Melvin’s been known to do during his years as a GM.

What do you guys think? Should J.J. be traded over the offseason? Through a waiver deal?

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milwaukee brewers by Cody