More like This Day in Half-Baseball. Um, I mean This Half-Day in Baseball. Hey, some of us need our beauty rest, ok? (and evidently some of us haven't woken up from it yet)
Oh, and if you clicked on this story hoping to get some inside dirt on Jays transactions, sorry about that. It's actually just my crazy ideas, but I had to get you to read the story somehow!
The offense continued to scuffle today, scoring 1 run off the worst team in baseball. Granted, they were facing Felix Hernandez, J.J. Putz and Brandon Morrow, 3 of the Mariners' best pitchers, but the longer the Jays continue to not-score, the more frustrated fans will become. Anyway, I'm not here to take in in-depth look at the Jays' offense - Magpie did that yesterday.
Okay, so what if I told you the following players were available:
Player A: .298/.411/.617
Player B: .376/.443/.654
Okay, they're actually not available, at least as far as I know, but bear with me here for a second. You probably looked at those lines and wondered who the heck I'm talking about. It's not immediately obvious because, well, they're not major leaguers. Player A is 23 year old Matt LaPorta and player B is 22 year old Mat Gamel, both of whom are Brewers prospects playing at AA. LaPorta was the 7th pick taken in last year's draft, and the 2nd college bat after Matt Wieters. Gamel was drafted out of high school in 2005 and was a pretty good prospect until this year when he suddenly turned into a masher. Unfortunately for the Brewers, neither of these 2 young sluggers can apparently play defense. Remind you of anyone?
Right now Gamel is at 3rd, which could technically work with LaPorta in right and Hart sliding over to center, but if Gamel can't handle 3rd, the Brew Crew has a problem on their hands. It's a pretty good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. And what do the Brewers need right now? Pitching. Gallardo and Capuano are out for the year, Sheets will probably get injured at some point (and is a free agent after this year), and Dave Bush and Carlos Villanueva haven't been doing much for the Crew out of the rotation. So what will it take for the Jays to get one of Gamel and LaPorta? If the Brewers ask for Marcum or McGowan I would balk. Would a package including Purcey get the deal done? How about Litsch (and would you give up Litsch? - I think I would) Who else would J.P. have to package? The Brewers could also use some bullpen help - names that come to mind include Camp, Wolfe, Carlson. Oh, and which guy would you rather have - Gamel or LaPorta? Gamel has hit better this year, but sort of came out of nowhere. LaPorta isn't a big surprise - lots of people thought he was the best bat in the draft last year, so the Brewers might be less willing to part with him.
Many different questions to mull over regarding this scenario, Bauxites - let's hear your thoughts.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20080611161553327