In the immortal words of Popeye:
"I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more."
The Brewers went, for lack of a better word, apeshit this morning and made a whole bunch of moves. They are, in short:
1. Firing Bill Castro.
2. Sending JJ Hardy down.
3. Promoting Escobar to the big club.
4. DFAing Bill Hall and calling up Jason Bourgeois.
I am fine with all of these moves.
7 hours ago
10 comments:
How has Jason Kendall dodged the ax so far. Let's get Salome/Lucroy up here.
bring on the futures squad:
escobar ss
cain cf
braun lf
fielder 1b
gamel 3b
hart rf
salome c
irribaren 2b
and i'd be fine replacing hart too.
something about these moves feels really good viscerally. kinda like smashing the car window of someone who just rear-ended you.
can we rename the "peter principle" the "castro principle"
I agree completely. I've read a few defensible criticisms of sending Hardy down, but most of those even conclude that Escobar is probably a wash. I'm OK with a wash in this case.
BTW, didn't Melvin just deny this morning putting Hardy on waivers? If Hardy was on such thin ice, why was he not exposed to waivers? Teams expose players all the time just to gauge interest. That's dumb if true.
if a team doesn't put every one of its players on waivers, it's being derelict in its duties. you can pull back players if they're claimed, so there's no risk. if they are not claimed, then you are free to trade them, which you obviously don't have to do.
the only downside to putting a guy on waivers is maybe having a player feel bad that he was put on waivers. of course, no player should feel bad, cuz every player should be put on waivers.
beyond that, you either make your assets more liquid (by giving you the option to trade players) or change nothing. and it costs very little effort.
i'll go as far as to say that melvin is outright lying if he says he didn't put hardy on waivers. especially because he has acknowledged other teams inquiring about him. if there's any chance you are gonna trade a guy, you want to try to get him through waivers before a trade becomes imminent, so that other teams do not sabotage the trade with a claim.
Another character that seems to be avoiding the Ax is Melvin. When is his jig up?
Agreed, it's just a weird thing to lie about. And "he's lying" is the most likely explanation in my opinion.
Interesting point made by Haudricourt: By sending Hardy down now, he'll miss service time requirements to be eligible for FA after 2010 and will have another season under team control, whether it's the Brewers or any other future employer.
Good point Track, that makes him more enticing as a trading chip. Former seasoned All-Star who is under club control through '11? Man, the Crew better pull a Boston and start pumping him full of steroids while in AAA.
didn't i read in one of the articles about hardy being sent down, that they promised him that they'd bring him back up before he lost that year of service time?
i feel like if they did leave him down long enough to lose the year of service time, they would face a grievance from the union.
also, it may have been too rash to say that melvin is definitely lying. sometimes if you really want to get a player through waivers, you'd monitor the teams likely to try to grab them, and try to push the player through waivers at a time when those teams all had 40-man roster crunches and whatnot. so it is possible that hardy hasn't hit waivers yet for that reason, i suppose.
All I have to say to that is Just! DAMN!
I like it.
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