Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 14, 2004
I-94 Corridor

The White Sox and Brewers pulled off a significant trade Monday.

The Milwaukee Brewers filled their most pressing need Monday when they closed the winter meetings by acquiring right-handed slugger Carlos Lee from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for center fielder Scott Podsednik, reliever Luis Vizcaino and a player to be named later.

This strikes me as a very good deal for the Brewers. Carlos Lee earned 24 win shares last season; the most any member of the 2004 Brewers earned was 21. Podseknik and Vizcaino combined for 21 win shares. So there's a win right there for the Brewers. Both outfielders are 29, but there's no doubt in my mind that Lee has the better future. There's a reason Podseknik didn't have his rookie season until he was 27. He just wasn't that good.

Luis Vizcaino is interesting. He has great strikeout numbers, but he allows a ton of HR. If you look at his career, his one great year (2002) was the one in which he kept his HR down. The bad news for Luis, however, is that US Cellular Field has the highest HR index of any AL park over the last three seasons. (See the Bill James Handbook, 2005.)

So the Brewers get a good, slugging outfielder. The White Sox get a center fielder whose best days are probably behind him, and a reliever whose weakness will be accentuated by his home park. The player to be named better be pretty good.

The Brewers are not without problems due to their dealings, however.

Moving Vizcaino, who was 4-4 with a 3.75 ERA in 75 appearances last season, creates a second hole in the bullpen. The right-hander was the primary set-up man last season for closer Dan Kolb, who was traded to Atlanta Saturday for rookie right-hander Jose Capellan and minor league pitcher Alex Zumwalt - whom the Brewers assigned to their Class AAA team Monday.

That leaves right-hander Mike Adams as the leading closer candidate after just one season in the majors.

"Now we have to go out and find some relief pitching," Melvin said. "We already have a long list (of candidates) on our board. It's a new challenge for us."

If they keep making trades like this, the Brewers should be up to the challenge.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:26 AM | Trades | TrackBack (1)
Comments

From the White Sox standpoint, a large part of the reason behind the trade was the fact that they will save about $6 million next year, which Kenny Williams hopes to use to sign another starter. If they can use this money to sign, say, Matt Clement, the team will come out ahead.

Anyway, as a White Sox fan, I hate to see Carlos Lee go, but I also was sick to death of how, for the last few years, the Sox would homer their way into second place. It'll be nice to at least have some players who can actually run and do some of the small ball things that Ozzie tried to do last year.

Posted by: Adam at December 14, 2004 09:19 AM

White Sox also cleared out about 6mil with that deal that could be used to sign Clement or Perez.

Posted by: Rob at December 14, 2004 09:19 AM

Is Lee only signed through next year (2006)?

Posted by: sabernar at December 14, 2004 09:42 AM

I believe he's making 8mil this year and there is a club option for 2006.

Posted by: Rob at December 14, 2004 09:43 AM

I think it's a horrible trade for the Sox. According to Lee Sinins' RCAA, last year Carlos Lee has 26 RCAA and Scott Podsednik has -20 RCAA. That's a pretty big swing. Vizcaino had 5 RCAA.

Posted by: sabernar at December 14, 2004 11:01 AM

Rumor has it that they traded for Podsednik because that's the guy Arizona wants in a proposed 3-way trade with the Yankees for Randy Johnson, not Carlos Lee.

Posted by: Larry Mahnken at December 14, 2004 01:32 PM

What's the rumored 3-way trade? And why would Arizona want Podsednik over Lee? Then again, they just signed Ortiz for 4 years, so I guess I have my answer to that.

Posted by: sabernar at December 14, 2004 02:01 PM

Chicago basically gets nothing because Podsednik isn't going to play in front of Aaron Rowand.

Posted by: Jack Tanner at December 14, 2004 02:06 PM

As a fan of the Brewers, our entire fan community is very happy with this trade. We thought we where going to come away with Dye or Hidalgo, Lee is a much better player then either of those two.

I think Pods will rebound in Chicago but not to the numbers of his rookie year.

Posted by: Stephen at December 14, 2004 03:02 PM

Oh Kenny... thank you yet again. Okay so if you want the money to sign Clement, it would be a good idea to sign him first. Otherwise they might end up giving Clement type money to Odalis Perez or someone even worse.

If they're gonna try and deal Pods to Arizona... who are they getting from the Yankees?? That catcher prospect who isn't that good? The Yankees have no prospects that are close to ready.

If you're trying to get faster, smaller, etc. why not deal Konerko instead. A mob informat in cement shoes runs faster than him :) Or Crede, or Gload, or Alomar...

All in all a very odd move. And one I'm sure Twins fans and Brewers fans are happy with. When was the last time that happened??

Posted by: Andy from Twins Killings at December 14, 2004 04:55 PM

"If they're gonna try and deal Pods to Arizona... who are they getting from the Yankees??"

Javier Vazquez.

Posted by: Larry Mahnken at December 14, 2004 05:06 PM
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