Nashville News Blog

Hooray for Joey! Finally someone responded to this post. So this means Pith can now be about baseball and nothing but baseball, yes? Yes.

So Joey's right: Gamel is now one of the worst defensive players in the league. At the time of his call-up, he was leading the Pacific Coast League in errors. And he committed an astounding 53 while at Huntsville (which is so hard to do he almost would have had to be trying to screw up).

The Tennessean had a pretty good story on Gamel's relationship with Sounds coach Don Money, who holds some sort of MLB record for most games without an error. It's too bad we'll be denied the Matthau-Lemmon-y element of that relationship.

But back to your original point.

Yes, the Brewers should probably trade Fielder. It'd help to find out whether or not Gamel can play first, but it does make sense for a number of reasons that people much smarter than I have already made (big guys like Prince don't age well, he'll be very expensive sometime soon and Gamel, based on his age, may oneday soon be a better hitter). On the downside: It'd mean shipping off the majors most visible vegetarian.

You guys want to ship off a known power hitter before you even know if Gamel can fill his shoes? You're crazy. You guys do realize how hard it is for low-budget teams to find and keep power hitters, don't you? (See my team, the Twins.)

No, Pete. It's precisely because they're a low-budget team that the Brewers should trade Fielder.

He's already arbitration eligible. And in two years he enters free agency, with Scott Boras for an agent. If you don't hear the Deathstar soundtrack booming behind you right now you're not a baseball fan.

Small-market teams like the Brewers and your Twins survive by selling off assets like Fielder to the highest bidder. In the short term, he is no doubt more valuable to the team than Gamel. But the Brewers don't have the luxury of thinking strictly in the short term. They need to move him now in exchange for the cheaper, younger parts that can do the job of replacing the impact he made in the batter's box.

For an example of Milwaukee acting like a big-market team you only need to go back one year, when they gave away their best prospect (Matt LaPorta, who any day now will be starting for the Indians) in exchange for a three-month rental. That that rental ended up carrying the team to its first playoff appearance in XX years is certainly relevant. But was it worth losing a guy who would have cost them only the rookie minimum for four years or more? I have my doubts.

I wouldn't have made the Sabathia trade unless they could sign him. And the Brewers will have to trade Fielder eventually, but with free agency two years off, I'd still wait to see if Gamel can hit in the majors. So many young, can't miss prospects, so few that can actually hit in the majors. The man's gotta put something on the table before you can call him a lock.