The news of the trade of 2 players to be named later for Francisco Rodriguez broke minutes after the All-Star Game ended last night. The very first tweet I got on the issue was from Jon Heyman and I was literally typing a reply to him along the lines of "Huh? Is this a butt tweet? A tweet intended to be a direct message? A tweet sent before it was finished?" But more and more news came out on it and I realized it was real.
My first reaction was "meh", "uggh" and "But wait, we still have huge problems at SS and 3B?" As debate went on over whether the move was smart, whether it helped the Brewers, what it cost them, etc I came around to realize that it PROBABLY helps the team.
The players on the list from which the 2 TBNL will be chosen are likely to mid-level (at least relative to the players in the organization) but nothing major or game-changing. This is a pure salary dump by the Mets and even then, not really a salary "dump", but rather a desperation move to avoid the vesting of the option on K-Rod's contract for 2012. (It requires 100 games finished in 2010-2011 AND 55 games finished in 2011). He had 46 games finished in 2010 and has 34 already this year. 20 would get him to the 100, but he needs 21 to get to the 55. Much like most of the internet realized, there is no way he finishes 21 games this year. Even if John Axford is catastrophically injured or implodes, a) there aren't likely to be a HUGE number of save opportunities anyway and b) K-Rod could still finish 20 games and avoid the vesting option...and the Brewers can use other options to fill the need (Saito/Hawkins/Loe). It's a non-issue.
If he can keep his focus and not make an issue of not being "the closer", K-Rod definitely gives the Brewers a much more stable option in the 8th. His WHIP is a little sketchy (certainly not truly dominant like he was in years past), but his K/9 is still nice at 9.7 and can put movement on a fastball in the low 90's. I believe the real benefit is this lets RRR truly go on matchups rather than roles. I think for a long time, he was locked into Loe as 8th inning guy because Saito was injured, and maybe he didn't trust Hawkins. But with K-Rod easily being able to go 2 or 3 days in a row, Loe can be used against RHB where he has a huge advantage and K-Rod can still be used occasionally to spell Axford to close. (That makes the Brewers bullpen very dangerous if RRR can push Ax 3 games in a row and not have to really worry about the next day knowing he can use K-Rod to close there if he has to).
Taking on financial costs in this trade, rather than giving up much in the way of talent still leaves Melvin with a few (a very few) pieces to try to execute a trade for SS help. But, honestly, I am still very committed to the idea now that they might as well stick with Yuni and IF McGehee just continues to struggle, they must call up Taylor Green at least to TRY to see if he can succeed in the majors at 3B. I do not want Furcal--who is an improvement, but too much of an injury risk---and the rest of the possible trade options just don't offer enough improvement over Yuni (how sad is THAT?).
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