Overbay Traded to Toronto!
Overbay Trade Unfounded
Brewers Don't Get Caught Up In Deadline Frenzy
Note Roth
As each trade deadline passes, each Brewers fans get ready to pay their respects to a dearly departed veteran for at least calling Milwaukee home for nearly two thirds of the season.
For 13 years the Brewers fans have been conditioned to expect the worst and to see our favorite players, solid or not, be dealt away for the mythical "future." Never mind that trades for the "future" never turned out, it's in our blood to expect serviceable players to be dealt for potential, and them never really panning out.
This year the casual fan is expecting first baseman Lyle Overbay to be dealt for spare parts. It's so expected that we keep on looking at which prized prospect we'll be getting in return ... whom could we pilfer from the Mets and Red Sox to supposedly improve the future?
Well, Doug Melvin is having none of it.
As of 3pm Sunday, all the trade rumors will be over and Overbay will still be with the Crew. Melvin realizes that Prince Fielder is not quite ready (he is currently batting .263 with 20 home runs at AAA Nashville), and has gone on record this week saying that position players can be traded for more value in the off season (fleecing for pitchers is the deadline game).
We, as Brewers fans, should change our thinking because, what Melvin is so subtly telling us, the future is now. With the team inching excruciatingly slowly to the .500 mark, the pitching not going south, and the cusp of the minor league talent reaching (and performing) at the major league level, we have to shake our Pavlovian response to the July deadline. Melvin and his crew have successfully built a solid organization that the Brewers need not look for spare parts anymore.
A reality check is needed, we need to take a deep breath and realize that the Brewers are not a vessel for other teams to pilfer. The Brewers are actually in competition with these other 29 teams (well, maybe not the Devil Rays), and it"s time for us, as fans, to expunge 13 years of failure and stop worrying so much about the future. Because the present is where it's at.