brewers put

unless its a nobody…which i doubt the brewers would take

He’d take the place of what I thought the Cards were acquiring Smoltz for…until Lohse went down.

but alas, its not an option

Motte’s got his ERA near 6 and has struggled. With Hoffman, we’d get a good set-up guy.

or he’d actually be playing against left handed pitching. Considering that the front office has made big moves to put the team in World Series contention, you have to figure that this would be another good move. It improves the ballclub and we’re going to see a lot of left handed pitching in the playoffs if things finish as they do today. Think about it:

Rockies: Francis
Phillies: Lee, Hamels, Moyer (although he probably wouldn’t start a playoff game, but who knows)
Dodgers: Kershaw (and some very good left specialists out of the pen)

That’s 4 lefty starters out of a group of 11 or 12 guys, so you’re talking about 35% of the innings in the postseason could come from lefties. It wouldn’t hurt to have a veteran player like Cameron on the club for that very reason.

The question isn’t whether we have enough outfielders, the question is whether Cameron is better than Ankiel or any other player we could call up from AAA that plays outfield. I think the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

which is why he won’t cost that much. They’re not going to want to pay him that kind of coin going forward, so they’d probably take a B level prospects or a couple of C level guys to get some return for him before the offseason. They thought they might be in contention until about 2 weeks ago, or he probably would have been dealt at the deadline.

and has a $10m option next year with a $0.75m buyout. He’s worth that easily, and if we buy him out and offer arby I suspect we could get his value down somewhat (or, indeed, he might say no, play the market, and we’ll get a supplemental pick back).

The only problem is that Cameron for ~$8m means no Holliday. However, I think I wouldn’t mind that too much. It leaves us about $20m to add a starter, a 3B and a relief pitcher, and may ultimately give us a more rounded team. We could probably keep Pineiro (or maybe Smoltz), keep DeRosa to play 3B (or maybe a bit of LF now and again), and add a reasonable set-up guy like LaTroy Hawkins or someone like that. It also gives us more flexibility long term to buyout Ludwick’s next couple of years, buyout Colby’s arby years, and give Pujols That Extension. No Holliday in this scenario, but perhaps we’ve got a better team…

I think there’s a few ways of skinning the cat of 2010 and putting a competitive team on the field, and I’d be open to a number of them. I could go either way on signing or not signing Holliday. One important point is that Holliday will be THE top Elias-ranked free agent, so if we don’t sign him we are GUARANTEED a first-round pick (probably the Yanks, Angels or BoSox, so it’d be late-20s), which isn’t the case with any of our other type As.

I could very much live with Cameron in LF, Colby in CF, Ludwick in RF, DeRo at 3B vs RHP and DeRo in LF, Cameron in CF, Ludwick in RF, Freese/Craig at 3B vs LHP (or perhaps Matt Murton in LF?), especially if we’ve still got Pineiro and his likely 4-ish FIP as our 3rd starter, and somebody good (Smoltz? Hawkins? Maybe even Hoffman or someone?) at the back end of the bullpen with Franklin. Equally, I’d love to have Holliday in LF going forward, but that probably means a cheap option at 3B (Freese/Lugo/etc), Pineiro walking, and a cheap option as our #3/4 starter.

They really don’t have any negative value.

We certainly don’t need someone in the outfield that’s getting on base at a .360 clip, plays good defense, hits home runs, and has a higher wOBA than all our outfielders not named Holliday.

FWIW, Ludwick strikes out a lot too, I guess we should just trade him away — nobody with that kind of K rate is going to be a successful hitter.

I just think the Brewers want some minor league depth in return for a guy that they plan on buying out and letting go for free in the offseason.

Murton is an option, but he doesn’t solve our CF problem against lefties, which is really our only offensive problem right now: We’re essentially starting two pitchers against lefties every time we face one, because Rasmus and Ankiel don’t hit much better than Carp does against left handed pitching. Rasmus’ defense should keep him in the lineup, but getting a guy like Cameron to play there would be a very good move, imo, since we’re likely to see quite a bit of left handed pitching in the playoffs and (hopefully) World Series, no matter who we’re playing.

But I think the rosters expand in a few days. Can’t Penny be added without taking anybody off of the active roster (well, after a couple days).

Basically, I’m not real sure about Penny’s stats, but I would at least give this guy a chance in the bullpen. He could turn it around in the NL under Duncan. He is a 2 time all star.

He’s been above average for the last 7 years except 2008 when he was injured (WARs: 3.0, 2.7, 3.2, 3.4, 4.3, 0.1, 2.1 so far this year).

His fastball velocity is actually UP this year (sitting at 94mph; his career average is a little over 93). His K/BB ratio is 2.12, which is slightly down on his career 2.17. Batters are swinging at his pitches at the same rate as usual, but making slightly more contact (he’s got a 13% whiff rate on swings this year, as opposed to a career 16%) but his control and first strike % are equivalent with his career rates.

His main issue this year is the HR – he’s giving up 1.16 per 9 innings, as opposed to a career rate of 0.87. Moving to a pitcher’s park (Busch) will help, and I feel that working with Duncan may help too – he’s a career 45% GB pitcher, but is only producing GB at 41% this year. A move to a bigger park, and a few more GB, and he’ll be back to being the ~4FIP pitcher he’s been for his career.