It’s our worst nightmare — Doug Melvin confirms that the Brewers had a meeting with free agent pitcher Carl Pavano. From Tom Haudricourt’s report for the Journal-Sentinel:
“We met yesterday with him,” said Melvin. “We wanted to talk to him, see what he’s about, educate him to what we’re about. For 45 minutes, (assistant) Gord (Ash) and I met with him and Tom O’Connell.
“I don’t want to get into anything other than we met with him.”
What the Brewers are about: giving out 3/$30MM contracts to mediocre starters without batting an eye.
I can muster saying two good things about this — one, at least the addition of Shaun Marcum means Pavano would be the Brewers’ #4 or #5; and two, there would be great potential in a mustache war between Pavano and John Axford. Other than that, this will probably be me if the deal does end up happening:
Of course, it all depends on the final contract. But I’m not expecting it to be pretty.
UPDATE 7:58 P.M., Wednesday: Jon Heyman reports that “top Brewers execs” are having dinner with Pavano and O’Connell tonight. You know things are getting serious when the front office makes a dinner date — you may remember the team making Jeff Suppan an offer after a five-hour visit for dinner at Mark Attanasio’s Los Angeles home. No idea if Attanasio is one of the “top execs” dining with Pavano and O’Connell, but it seems like the Brewers aren’t messing around in their pursuit of Pavano.
UPDATE 7:40 A.M, Thursday: Heyman clarifies that the Brewers had dinner with Pavano on Tuesday night, not Wednesday. The best news, though, is that Haudricourt is reporting that the Brewers aren’t willing to go past two years with Pavano, and that’s why they believe he’ll ultimately return to Minnesota. Celebrate, everybody — Doug Melvin hasn’t completely lost his mind in this push to contend in 2011.
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