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06-17-2006, 04:36 AM
<b>Melvin willing to trade top prospect for pitching</b>
Pittsburgh - Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said Thursday he would trade a top prospect in his farm system for an established winning pitcher, if one were available.
The key word is "if."
"I'm open for any kind of trade," said Melvin. "There just aren't any pitchers you'd want that are available."
With the Brewers in a pitching crisis that has caused their team ERA to balloon to 5.27, easily the worst in the National League, Melvin has done his due diligence, calling other general managers to see what pitching might be available.
Thus far, the market has been bleak. Some folks think you should be able to pry away pitchers such as Florida's Dontrelle Willis from losing teams, but Melvin said that is not realistic.
"Willis isn't available," said Melvin. "Those calls have been made. The reason a team is bad is because they don't have a lot of pitchers to trade.
"If you're going to trade a prospect, you'd prefer to get somebody on the rise. You don't want somebody on the down side of his career who isn't better than what you have. Most trades (involving pitching) are made with pitchers who aren't doing very well.
"We'll stay on top of it in case somebody is made available, but right now there's not much out there. Everybody's looking for pitching."
Melvin knew it would hurt when starters Tomo Ohka (partial rotator cuff tear) and Ben Sheets (shoulder tendinitis) went on the disabled list. But he never expected Ben Hendrickson to come up from the minors, flop and be sent back down, and Dana Eveland to struggle so much.
"You get baffled a little bit when they pitch in the minor leagues and have such success and come up to the big leagues and it's that big of a gap," he said. "You always look to see if you can tweak things, but we've done enough of that. We've shuffled bodies.
"Internally, we have to get better. We've got to gut our way through this thing until our guys get healthy. With Rick Helling, we felt we had six starters going into the season. We couldn't protect against three injuries (including Helling). But that's no excuse. We just have to pitch better. Guys have to step up."
With Ohka and Sheets not expected back any time soon - perhaps not in the first half - Melvin acknowledged the Brewers could fall out of the playoff race before they return. He said it's up to the personnel on hand not to let that happen.
Pittsburgh - Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said Thursday he would trade a top prospect in his farm system for an established winning pitcher, if one were available.
The key word is "if."
"I'm open for any kind of trade," said Melvin. "There just aren't any pitchers you'd want that are available."
With the Brewers in a pitching crisis that has caused their team ERA to balloon to 5.27, easily the worst in the National League, Melvin has done his due diligence, calling other general managers to see what pitching might be available.
Thus far, the market has been bleak. Some folks think you should be able to pry away pitchers such as Florida's Dontrelle Willis from losing teams, but Melvin said that is not realistic.
"Willis isn't available," said Melvin. "Those calls have been made. The reason a team is bad is because they don't have a lot of pitchers to trade.
"If you're going to trade a prospect, you'd prefer to get somebody on the rise. You don't want somebody on the down side of his career who isn't better than what you have. Most trades (involving pitching) are made with pitchers who aren't doing very well.
"We'll stay on top of it in case somebody is made available, but right now there's not much out there. Everybody's looking for pitching."
Melvin knew it would hurt when starters Tomo Ohka (partial rotator cuff tear) and Ben Sheets (shoulder tendinitis) went on the disabled list. But he never expected Ben Hendrickson to come up from the minors, flop and be sent back down, and Dana Eveland to struggle so much.
"You get baffled a little bit when they pitch in the minor leagues and have such success and come up to the big leagues and it's that big of a gap," he said. "You always look to see if you can tweak things, but we've done enough of that. We've shuffled bodies.
"Internally, we have to get better. We've got to gut our way through this thing until our guys get healthy. With Rick Helling, we felt we had six starters going into the season. We couldn't protect against three injuries (including Helling). But that's no excuse. We just have to pitch better. Guys have to step up."
With Ohka and Sheets not expected back any time soon - perhaps not in the first half - Melvin acknowledged the Brewers could fall out of the playoff race before they return. He said it's up to the personnel on hand not to let that happen.