Colorado Rockies And Milwaukee Brewers And Kyle Kendrick

Colorado Rockies pitcher Kyle Kendrick. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

If AJ Preller can run the San Diego Padres like a fantasy league team making opening day trades, then the time is right for the Colorado Rockies and Milwaukee Brewers to make a deal with other.

The premise of my proposed trade between the two teams begins with swapping their respective opening day starting pitchers for each other.  Yes, I know the Rockies lit up Kyle Lohse to the tune of 8 runs in 3 1/3 innings.  Yes, I understand Rockies starter Kyle Kendrick (who they went out and signed during the long winters free agency period) was lights out today pitching 7 scoreless innings.  The key in that last sentence was “today”.

When it comes to pitchers the two stats I focus on are ERA (earned run average) and WHIP (walks + hits/innings played).  In 7 years with the Philadelphia Phillies, Kendrick’s career ERA is 4.42 and career WHIP is 1.367.

Looking back at the last 7 years of Kyle Lohse’s career, his 5 years in St. Louis he had a 3.90 ERA and a 1.279 WHIP.  In Lohse’s two years with the Milwaukee Brewers, his ERA has averaged 3.45 and WHIP averaged 1.159.  Better than Kendrick’s numbers but not enough to justify the extra 5.5 million owed to Lohse this season (final year of his contract) OR justify the fact Lohse is almost 6 years older.

Enter into the equation the terrible news that the Brewers star slugger Ryan Braun left the season opening game with an injury.

The Rockies have a 5.825 million dollar strikeout problem with Drew Stubbs.  The Rockies have a 2.8 million dollar catcher that can’t catch in Wilin Rosario.

Again I go back to the Padres General Manager AJ Preller and his opening day deal where he essentially traded spare parts headlined by Cameron Maybin and Carlos Quentin for Craig freakin Kimbrel and the currently injured Melvin Upton Jr.

Why can’t the Rockies upgrade on their “prized” free agent signing after one hot game?  Especially if the Brewers stand to lose Braun for a couple weeks, the options for solving each other problems are plentiful for the Rox and the Brew Crew.

Then again, maybe I’ve just been playing fantasy baseball too long.

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