My eyebrows jumped when I saw Dick Groch, the special assistant to Brewers general manager Doug Melvin, sitting in the Yankee Stadium dining room today. Yankees fans should know Groch - he's only the guy who scouted, recommended and signed Derek Jeter, back in 1992.
When you see Groch around the ballpark nowadays, you know he's looking at someone as a Brewers trade target. It's pretty obvious, given the two teams here and Milwaukee's needs, that person is A's closer Huston Street.
Of course, just as I thought I was blowing the lid off this Street-to-the Brewers thing, I saw that Tom Haudricourt, the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, filed this story. Tom doesn't miss much. He was all over the CC Sabathia trade.
We know that Milwaukee has the prospects to make a Street trade happen. That would really impressive if the Brewers picked up Sabathia and Street within the same month. It's looking like we could have five teams, combined, from the NL East and NL Central, fighting for three playoff spots. Should be fun.
Comments (4)
Ken what is your opinion on Street? He blows about 25% of his save attempts throughout his career.
I like Street, Sandy. He's not an elite closer, but he's reliable and would certainly be an upgrade for Milwaukee.
Ken, I wrote in the last two weeks that it has to be tough to be an A's fan. In fact, I don't know why anyone would be an A's fan. They have only four teams in their division, thus they are always in contention for a playoff spot. Yet, they are also constantly trading away many of their top players for unproven talent. In a perfect world, Oakland wouldn't have a major league franchise. It is ridiculous that a team could trade two starters and now (maybe) its closer within a two week span. No one should show up at their games. This is sickening.
I've read elsewhere that Oakland is pretty much trying to stay afloat until they get the final word on whether the local authorities in and around Fremont (a suburb of SF/Oakland/San Jose) will permit them to build a ballpark there (don't know anything about the financing plan).
By most accounts, they would rather be in San Jose but the Giants have that part of the Bay Area exclusively (although the TV territory is identical for both teams) and will not sell it for any amount of money. San Jose/Silicon Valley is where most of the area's money is.
Now if they don't get a ballpark in Fremont, it's anyone's guess what's next for the A's. Alameda County/Oakland and the Raiders get most of the revenue from the Coliseum.