Sabathia Trade Talk

There was a lot of talk recently about the attempts the Dodgers were making to obtain C.C. Sabathia from the Indians and ultimately why the Dodgers didn't acquire him.

In my opinion, it wouldn't have been a good idea to trade for Sabathia. As of right now, pitching is not our problem, hitting is, and almost all sources indicated that Matt Kemp was likely to be involved in the trade, along with a few other prospects as well. And that was just a deal for Sabathia...

Well, according to Tony Jackson of the L.A. Daily News:

"Dodgers owner Frank McCourt nixed a trade that would have brought Sabathia to Los Angeles, along with Indians third baseman Casey Blake and utility man Jamey Carroll."

This was a great call. First off, for Sabathia alone, the Milwaukee Brewers had to give up four prospects. Can you imagine how many players we'd have to give up for Sabathia, and Blake and Carroll on top of that?

Secondly, how could this trade have helped the team? We would have added Sabathia, who is an excellent pitcher, but he would have pushed someone out of our already crowded starting rotation, that has been doing very well recently. On top of this, we'd acquire Casey Blake, who will be 35 in August, and has seen his numbers decline the past few years, and frankly, wouldn't add much to our starting lineup. I'd rather see Blake DeWitt or Andy LaRoche out there. Also coming over in the deal would have been 34-year old Jamey Carroll. Carroll is a light-hitting (and I stress light hitting: 9 career hrs, .272 career average, plus not too much speed to speak of) utility infielder. What could Carroll give us that we couldn't already get from Luis Maza?

And to think, we could have given up some good prospects for that? I haven't agreed with too much Frank McCourt has done, but he gets some points in my book if he did, in fact, veto this trade. Now there's talk about what to do at the shortstop position, and whether or not there should be a trade. I'll write about that later.