Economics of Baseball 101 (or Why the JJ Hardy Trade Makes Doug Melvin Look Mildly Retarded)

So, despite my Internet monicker (featured in the url of this particular blog), I've focused largely on football since starting up. This is largely due to the crappiness of baseball played in my home area this year, coupled with the fact that it's football season. That, and the Yankees winning the World Series (which deserves it's own hateful little column). But today's news that the Brewers had dealt J.J. Hardy to the Twins for Carlos Gomez, I couldn't let slide.

Doug Melvin, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for this one.

Is it a completely indefensible trade? Hardly. With Alciedes Escobar around, Hardy was expendable. And Gomez allows the Crew to part ways with Mike Cameron and his $10m salary which, when combined with the $4m the Brewers no longer have to pay Hardy, can be used to pursue a free agent pitcher or two. From the opportunity cost angle, the move makes sense. However, there are two major flaws to this argument.

1. It's easy to overthink things in sports. And when you boil this trade down to it's bare fundamentals, it's crazy. We're giving up a shortstop two years removed from the All-Star Game for a fourth outfielder with a career line that suggests a ceiling of .260-15-75. That's not even close to even.

And that's the thing. Maybe we're clearing out space for need areas, but who says we can't do that in a trade that actually gets us something of value? The 2009 season ended two days ago. We've got five months until any actual games are played. You're telling me we couldn't wait a few months for some better offers to come in? As I Twittered after hearing of the deal, this is a classic example of a team being in such a hurry to unload a player that they forget that they are supposed to actually get something in return.

(Then again, since the Bucks basically dealt Richard Jefferson for a Gatorade bucket and two cases of athletic tape, maybe the Brewers just felt peer pressure to crush their fans with a one-sided trade. You never know.)

2. Hey, $14m to spend for the free agent pitcher pool! Sounds awesome, right. Here's Jayson Stark of ESPN.com's take on the class of 2010. Some quotables:

"I don't think there's one [starting] pitcher in this entire group I'd invest a lot of money in. Not one."--A GM on the upcoming free-agent class

"Risky" … "weak" … "terrible" … "mediocre" … "thin" … "roll-of-the-dice" … "one-year-contract" … and "fortunate" -- because "these guys are going to get overpaid."--Taken from a survey of MLB general managers asked to describe the free-agent class in one word

"There are some guys in this group who are dependable. Except they're dependable to give you 5.00 ERAs and 180 innings. And that's not what you want to build a staff around."--an American League executive

In other words: just up the Milwaukee sports scene's alley! Just what we need--the pitching version of Jeffrey Hammonds! I will now smash my head in a George Foreman grill.

Yes, the Brewers can still trade for a pitcher who might be better than the crop of yo-yos on the open market. But we just gave away our most valuable trading chip for virtually nothing! The deal makes even less sense if we're planning on trading for a pitcher--instead of giving up something of value to us for said pitcher, we could've given up Hardy, who we apparently have no interest in keeping around.

Three years ago, we were very much on the right track. Even the playoff push two years ago was beautiful to watch. But it seems like since then, Melvin and the rest of the front office staff have been making decisions that lead me to believe they are happy with .500 ball. The thing is: I'm not, and most of the Brewer faithful aren't either.