Brewers acquire Linebrink for Inman, Thatcher and Garrison

[worthlessBucks]

Not a big fan of this. It's a double edged sword because I would like to see the Brewers make some moves to bolster the club, but I also don't want them to forget who they are. They are a small market team who has to maximize their resources accordingly, that means not overpaying in trades or in free agency (Suppan).

I don't like the comp pick analogy for when Linebrink becomes a free agent. "We'll re-bolster our farm system with comp picks"..not really because Inman was pretty good and it'll take awhile for a prospect to get to Inman's current level. If/when that time comes of course.

[ReasonablySober]

I don't like the comp pick analogy for when Linebrink becomes a free agent. "We'll re-bolster our farm system with comp picks"..not really because Inman was pretty good and it'll take awhile for a prospect to get to Inman's current level. If/when that time comes of course.

Are we really sure about that? Isn't it sort of a widely held view that Inman wasn't as good as his stats would lead you to believe?

As for the comp picks, look no further than Huston Street. He was regarded as one of the greatest college closers of all-time and someone who could come in and pitch for a big league team right off the bat. He went #40 overall as a comp selection. Last year you saw Joba Chamberlain go #41 overall, a comp selection is on the verge of being called up by the Yanks to work in their bullpen. Garrett Olson of the O's is in the same situation as Chamberlain. Polished college pitcher taken in 2005 on the verge of a call-up.

I don't think it would be incredibly tough to find a pitcher in the later half of round one or as a comp pick to come in that could theoretically be at the same stage as Inman.

[El Duderino]

Do I really have to remind anyone here of the deal made at the deadline last year in which we traded for a guy that had lost his role as a closer due to a sub-par season that was atypical from his previous seasons?

1.Cordero had another year left on his contract,that's a huge distinction.He wasn't just a 2 month rental that we'd likely only get 20 innings from.

2.Cordero had shown that he had already righted the ship by the time we aquired him.After a bad April,he had posted a 2.51/2.08 ERA for Texas in their setup role and the strikeouts/stuff was shown to still be there.

3.Linebrink pitched pretty well last year,but saw his ERA rise over the previous three stellar seasons Fast forward to this year,he has not only allow a run or more in 8 of his last 17 trips to the mound,his K rate has taken a dump and homer rate jumped.Maybe he's been overworked and is starting to decline or maybe he's just in a pitchers slump,i do though see more reason to be concerned with him is all vs where Cordero was.I'll be glad to be wrong or worried over nothing.

I'm not claiming to be a scout who watched Linebrink pitch this year or saying i can read the future,he very well could do great for us.All i'm saying is his numbers and the fact that a contender would trade him for kids while in a pennant race both send up some red flags for me.Towers in SD is a pretty good GM and has found himself pitching over the years.I can't help but ask myself,why if he still thought Linebrink was a top setup man,would he trade the guy now while only being 1 game back and be willing to replace him with a rookie?

[trwi7]

1.Cordero had another year left on his contract,that's a huge distinction.He wasn't just a 2 month rental that we'd likely only get 20 innings from.

Does it really matter? Christ some people complain for the sake of complaining if we didn't make a move at the deadline people would be whining saying we're not trying to win it.

2.Cordero had shown that he had already righted the ship by the time we aquired him.After a bad April,he had posted a 2.51/2.08 ERA for Texas in their setup role and the strikeouts/stuff was shown to still be there.

But one bad month from Linebrink matters? The guy had a 2.48 ERA before a bad month. You discount Cordero's bad month but count Linebrink's? What the hell is up with that? And Linebrinks stuff is still there, do you honestly think they would've traded for him if it wasn't? Do you think they didn't send scouts out to watch him?

3.Linebrink pitched pretty well last year,but saw his ERA rise over the previous three stellar seasons Fast forward to this year,he has not only allow a run or more in 8 of his last 17 trips to the mound,his K rate has taken a dump and homer rate jumped.

Imagine that relievers don't have sub 2 ERA's or ERA's just above 2 year after year. I'd be more concerned if he gave up a ton of flyballs compared to groundballs but he's had 56 groundballs compared to 53 flyballs.

I can't help but ask myself,why if he still thought Linebrink was a top setup man,would he trade the guy now while only being 1 game back and be willing to replace him with a rookie?

Linebrink is a FA. They felt that Thatcher could help and if you haven't noticed they already have a pretty damn good pen. So instead of taking the picks he decided to trade them for prospects right now.

[El Duderino]

Does it really matter? Christ some people complain for the sake of complaining if we didn't make a move at the deadline people would be whining saying we're not trying to win it.

Not me,i've never held the belief a team has to make a trade just to show fans they are trying "extra hard" to win now.All trades are determined by what you give for what you get in return.BTW,i never said it was a horrible trade,simply on first blush i have concerns whether it was a good move to make,nothing more.Hell,we signed Suppan partly as a move to show we are trying to win now,how good is that working out so far?Hopefully Suppan turns things around.Besides him hurting the team this year so far,we have 42 million other reasons for concern.

But one bad month from Linebrink matters? The guy had a 2.48 ERA before a bad month. You discount Cordero's bad month but count Linebrink's? What the hell is up with that?

I think i made my reason pretty clear why i have more worry over Linebrink now than Cordero then.Linebrink is coming to us after allowing a run in 8 of his last 17 times out and his K rate dropping,Cordero had already righted his ship and was coming off two stellar months in Texas,showing nothing was wrong.We have to hope Linebrink is just in a funk and will fix things soon,Cordero already had when we aquired him.

Linebrink is a FA. They felt that Thatcher could help and if you haven't noticed they already have a pretty damn good pen. So instead of taking the picks he decided to trade them for prospects right now.

You very well could be right and that's all that it is.All i know is that i can't remember the last time a legit contender traded a top relief pitcher in the middle of a pennant race for prospects.Can you remember when something simular happened?

Mix in he's been struggling,it just sets off red flags for me.If it doesn't for you,hey,so be it.It's quite possible i'm reading into something not there.I do know this,if Linebrink is declining (remember i said if),who would know better than them and what would be the smart thing to do then?

Like i said before,i really hope it works out, and leads to a playoff berth,i love baseball and the Brewers.Then again,that doesn't mean i have to sit back and not ever have questions about moves made just because we are in first place or Melvin did it.You like the move better than i do,big deal,it happens.

[trwi7]

I'm not talking about you for the trades thing it's just pissing me off that some people over at brewerfan.net are whining about the trade but if the Brewers didn't make a trade the same people would be whining. Anyways Thatcher could be a decent LOOGY I don't consider him to be anymore than that, Inman is a bottom the rotation 4/5 starter type with very average stuff and the same goes for Garrison.

Linebrink is coming to us after allowing a run in 8 of his last 17 times out

I honestly don't get this. Cordero started the year giving up runs in 7 of his first 12 appearances. That's like saying we shouldn't have traded for him because of that bad stretch. I'm not going to discard the fact that he had a sub 2.5 ERA the first 3 months of the year or what he has done the past few years because a bad month came.

Yes Cordero's stretch happened in April but are you really going to take a small sample of data like this and make it change your opinion of 3 plus years of data?

His declining K rate is a tad concerning but he's allowing more flyballs this month which means it's more of a location thing to me than a declining skills thing.

You very well could be right and that's all that it is.All i know is that i can't remember the last time a legit contender traded a top relief pitcher in the middle of a pennant race for prospects.Can you remember when something simular happened?

And again their bullpen and pitching in general is very good. They probably thought to themselves hey teams are probably looking for bullpen help so let's trade him now and see what we can get. We started off offering Inman and Thatcher but needed to add Garrison for San Diego to pull the trigger.

Plus it's not like we're not going to get anything. Either we re-sign him or get picks to replace Inman and Garrison.

Mix in he's been struggling,it just sets off red flags for me.If it doesn't for you,hey,so be it.It's quite possible i'm reading into something not there.I do know this,if Linebrink is declining (remember i said if),who would know better than them and what would be the smart thing to do then?

I honestly think you're reading too much into it. Him struggling for a month (actually two games really) would be like us looking to trade Hall after his less than stellar start to the year.

Then again,that doesn't mean i have to sit back and not ever have questions about moves made just because we are in first place or Melvin did it.

Yes I remember the Carlos Lee trade last year and remember thinking to myself WTF Melvin you just got owned. Turns out I was wrong about that. I expect to be right about this though.

[goirish2107]

well he (linebrink) has certainly performed well for my brewers team on mlb 06 the show (which won the series btw) so i'm all for it. in all seriousness though, this is nothing but an upgrade for us. he can eat up more than one inning, not to mention he's not balfour, aquino, etc etc. so what if he leaves after next year? the picks make up what we gave up to get him, not to mention possible picks we'd get from coco if he goes. this also opens us up to move arms to get offense, which it seems we sorely need right now. the biggest thing for me is this trade keeps the pen fresher and gives us more top end options when our starters don't go past the 5th.

[BuckPack]

And to those that think the potential compensation picks won't be able to make it up here as quickly as Inman.....Inman had an ERA above 5.00 in AA--sorry but that doesn't sound like he's ready any time soon. Moreoever, he's projected a s 4th or 5th starter....nto saying you can find those anywhere, but there are a lot of Claudio Vargas' out there.

I like the deal. Now we just need to find some timely hitting with our existing lineup....


as for other deals down the road, anyone think we're going to be looking for a bat now or are we done?

[Ayt]

And to those that think the potential compensation picks won't be able to make it up here as quickly as Inman.....Inman had an ERA above 5.00 in AA--sorry but that doesn't sound like he's ready any time soon. Moreoever, he's projected a s 4th or 5th starter....nto saying you can find those anywhere, but there are a lot of Claudio Vargas' out there.

I like the deal. Now we just need to find some timely hitting with our existing lineup....


as for other deals down the road, anyone think we're going to be looking for a bat now or are we done?

Inman was terrible in his first 3 starts in AA and was apparently battling mono. In his next 5 starts, this is what he did:

29 IP
20 H
12 BB
30 K
2.48 ERA

I was going to post about this yesterday in the minor league thread we have going, but didn't get around to it. Then, of course, he got traded.

[ReasonablySober]

The point was made before that at the moment we have a lot of quality young arms and that's probably a reason why we could afford to deal Inman. I think it's a very legit point.

Right now the Brewers have three young guys that could start for a lot of teams in Gallardo, Parra and Villanueva. We're bringing them out of the pen though because we just don't need 'em to start yet. What we need now and next season is a strong 7, 8, 9 this season. If we lose Cordero and/or Linebrink you can use the pick(s) on advanced college pitchers, as I illustrated pages ago.

[mnstinks]

Padres players are not happy with Linebrink trade...Hoffman is poed.

Link on Realgm MLB page

[Nowak008]

All i know is that i can't remember the last time a legit contender traded a top relief pitcher in the middle of a pennant race for prospects.Can you remember when something simular happened?

Mix in he's been struggling,it just sets off red flags for me

.

Thats my feelings as well. They are 1.5 back in their division and are leading the wild card. With the starting pitching that they have, they really are legit contenders.

[mosarsour]

He's solid

[El Duderino]

Yes Cordero's stretch happened in April but are you really going to take a small sample of data like this and make it change your opinion of 3 plus years of data?

His declining K rate is a tad concerning but he's allowing more flyballs this month which means it's more of a location thing to me than a declining skills thing.

One other thing that worried me wasn't just his last bad month or so,Linebrink had an ERA of 4.64 after the All-Star break last year and a 1.58 WHIP.Then he's having problems this year,so if you couple together his roughly last 70 innings which is about a full season of work,his ERA was about 4.25 in that time frame.That's more than a month.

Now that's not terrible for a relief pitcher,but it's hardly shut down setup man numbers and why a large number of Padres fans weren't exactly crying because he's leaving.The numbers show since the All-Star break last season,Linebrink has performed more like how you'd want your 6th/7th inning guy to do,not your setup man.

Hopefully the change sparks him and he gets back to where he was pre-All Star break last season and years prior.Obviously Brewer management watched film and believe the stuff is still there,we'll find out if they were correct in their assesment.

[humanrefutation]

Nice deal. I'm glad we've finally been able to pry away Linebrink from the Padres with such a paltry package. I like Inman, but he's no Yo-Ga, and he was likely a borderline major leaguer.

[L&H_05]

Not a terrible move...

[Ayt]

One thing I can say, if Linebrink does come out of his recent short funk and revert a bit, our pen could become extremely nasty with Liney and Co-Co back to back with T-Bow also being an 8th inning guy and possibly now a 7th inning guy as well.

Another thing to keep in mind. In his career, Linebrink has been much tougher on lefties than righties, most likely due to his great sinker. If Yost is smart, he can use Wise and Linebrink in situations against lefties since they both -- Wise especially -- are very tough on lefties.

[brewcityboii]

One thing I can say, if Linebrink does come out of his recent short funk and revert a bit, our pen could become extremely nasty with Liney and Co-Co back to back with T-Bow also being an 8th inning guy and possibly now a 7th inning guy as well.

Another thing to keep in mind. In his career, Linebrink has been much tougher on lefties than righties, most likely due to his great sinker. If Yost is smart, he can use Wise and Linebrink in situations against lefties since they both -- Wise especially -- are very tough on lefties.

Big if....Shawn Kemps IQ > Ned yosts IQ

[Ill-yasova]

I'm Just glad it was Inman and not Jeffress. You can learn a curve or a changeup, you can't learn a near 100 mph fastball.

[JoeWolfFan]

I'm Just glad it was Inman and not Jeffress. You can learn a curve or a changeup, you can't learn a near 100 mph fastball.

Excellent point. There is a very good chance that Innman is the next Ben Hendrickson. I just hope he doesn't turn out to be the next Villenuava.