A Look at the Edmonds/Dickerson Deal

With the Brewers facing off against the Reds for the first time since the Jim Edmonds trade, I figured it was a good time to take a look at the early returns of the trade.

Admittedly, we’re dealing with a very, very small amount of games here — the trade went down on August 9, three weeks ago today — but it’s still worth taking a look.

Edmonds has only played in nine games for the Reds, hitting .136/.208/.364 before landing on the DL with an oblique injury.  Adam McCalvy caught up with Edmonds in Cincinnati before tonight’s game, and not surprisingly, it sounds like Edmonds is leaning towards retirement after this season.  According to McCalvy, Edmonds was thinking about retiring earlier this month when he was still with the Brewers, but was talked out of it by Ken Macha.

Chis Dickerson, meanwhile, has been a pleasant surprise in his first 38 plate appearances as a Brewer.  Appearing in 14 games, Dickerson is hitting .303/.351/.394 and has shown solid defense in both center and right field.  I liked the idea of him being the team’s fourth outfielder when the deal was made, and he hasn’t disappointed.  He hasn’t hit for much power since the trade, but we’re still dealing with a small sample size and a loss of power wouldn’t be surprising considering his wrist injury earlier this season.  Brewers fans know all too well from their experiences with Rickie Weeks that it can take awhile to get power back after suffering a broken wrist.

I thought this trade was a “win” for Doug Melvin when he made it, and three weeks in, I still feel that way.  While this deal hasn’t worked out for the Reds, I’d hesitate to call it a “loss” for Walt Jocketty.  The Reds didn’t lose anything of real value to them — Dickerson is a nice 4th outfielder to have, but they have about three other 4th outfielders on that team — and they probably knew going in that anything they could get out of Edmonds in this stretch run would be a bonus.  It’s not like they’ve suffered in the standings, either — since August 9th, the Reds have expanded their division lead from 1.0 to 5.0, going 11-6.

As far as returns in an August waiver trade go, I don’t think the Brewers could have asked Dickerson to do much more than he has.  Except maybe catch a flight to Milwaukee a little quicker.