Brewers News: George Kottaras Designated for Assignment; Greinke Trade Rumors
Folks, the Milwaukee Brewers have made four roster moves so far today, but the two moves that concern me right now are these: they’ve reinstated catcher Jonathan Lucroy from the disabled list, and designated for assignment catcher George Kottaras (.209 BA, 3 HR and 12 RBI) to make room for him. (The other two moves? The Brewers sent shortstop Jeff Bianchi, who hadn’t yet managed to get a hit in his major league tryout, back to AAA ball, and have brought up pitcher Jim Henderson from AAA, where he’d been having an outstanding year — 4-3 record, 15 saves, a 1.69 ERA in 35 outings (48 innings) with 56 strikeouts.)
Aside from that, everything else is all rumors — but the hottest rumor right now is that pitcher Zack Greinke may be going to the Texas Rangers for shortstop Elvis Andrus via the Brewer Nation blog. Neither player would be traded alone; supposedly, a relief pitcher and a position player would go with Greinke (anyone but Corey Hart, please!), while a pitching prospect or two would come from Texas along with Andrus. While other rumors insist that the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves are still very interested in Greinke and will do anything to cut the rest of MLB out of the mix . . . as always, I’ll keep you posted.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 
Im a huge rangers fan along with being a baseball know it all. Sending Andrus away would make alot of rangers fans uneasy considering most know nothing about Profar (AA allstar that has potential of being jose reyes at the plate and andrus on the field). Ohter rumors i am hearing is trading away Andrus, Justin Grimm and AAA prospect Mike Olt for Greinke and Gallardo?
Cam
July 27, 2012 at 8:21 am
I understand why Rangers’ fans would be uneasy, Cam . . . we had two good shortstops here just a few, short years ago — J.J. Hardy and Alcides Escobar. Both were traded (granted, Escobar was part of the trade to Kansas City that brought the Brewers Greinke in the first place). And since then, we haven’t had a steady shortstop — perhaps Alex Gonzalez would’ve been that, but he got injured too early in the season.
So if I were a Rangers fan, and saw someone like Andrus who was doing well (closest analogy to Hardy), but had another guy, Profar (Escobar) doing really well in the minors who projects out eventually to being perhaps a bit better than Andrus, I’d be very concerned too, and there’s no way on Earth I’d want to trade a guy who’s proven himself in the majors only to let an unproven rookie attempt to take my team to the playoffs instead. And I’d be really mad at the GM for doing this (as I’ve remained rather perturbed at Brewers GM Doug Melvin for trading Hardy away, then trading the “shortstop of the future” Escobar away, too).
If Gallardo got traded to the Rangers, that would send shockwaves through Milwaukee. He has a team-friendly contract, comparatively, and is a solid #2 pitcher. (Not quite an ace, though sometimes he does look like one. But he doesn’t have the killer instinct of someone like Ben Sheets, who was the Brewers ace for many years.) Gallardo signed an extension last year, or maybe the year before that, and has a couple of years left on his contract. So it would be quite surprising if he were traded.
But they say anything is possible.
Barb Caffrey
July 27, 2012 at 1:40 pm