Rubin: Brewers' GM Melvin's Take On Ike Talks

In a short post to his ESPNNY blog, Adam Rubin gets a few words with Milwaukee Brewers GM as to why trade negotiations involving Ike Davis have ostensibly fallen apart. A few quotes from Melvin to MLB.com:

"First base, I’ve had ongoing discussions with Sandy Alderson, but we haven’t gotten to anything where we’re comfortable with the deal from our side, and he’s not been comfortable with the deal from his side," Melvin told MLB.com. 

Asked if the Mets were being too demanding... "I don’t ever get into that. Everybody makes the deal that they feel is the best deal for them. I don’t ever consider whether asking prices are too high on [trades] or not, because you don’t know until after the deal and you’ve seen players perform. I think we’ve pretty well stood by -- the one thing we’ve done -- is we do not want to give up pitching.” 

Well, from the point of view of a team that is trying to build on pitching as well, I see what Melvin means. Ike is a complete reclamation project at this point, so giving up a high to fair pitching prospect for him makes little sense. Imagine which prospect from the Mets deep pitching ranks you'd give up for Ike. Low level bullpen prospect at best, right? Then the Mets don't get a solid return for Ike, who they still value, so it's obviously been tough finding middle ground.

Frustrating thought it may be to still have Ike and Duda on the roster, just bear in mind that not giving players away has been a hallmark of Sandy Alderson's tenure with the Mets. This is one aspect of his job that he should be almost universally trusted with.

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Added by Rob Patterson (1:15pm):

This is the first we've heard all winter that the Brewers were resistant to moving pitching in general. So now it begs the question if there's ever been a deal to be made with Milwaukee, who for the longest time have been considered the most logical trade partner. 

It's also worth noting, as Matt Cerrone pointed out this morning on MetsBlog, it's getting to the point where both the Brewers and Orioles could just wait the Mets out.  There is a chance the Mets could simply cut Davis next month paying him just $600K to go away.  If that were to happen, both the teams could compete for his services via free agency rather than giving up talent too. I'm skeptical the Mets will do so since their asking price in trade talks has been so high, but its a line of thought.