Yanks Add Insult to Brewers’ Injury?

Late last night, the Brewers and Yankees resumed their earlier trade talks for Mike Cameron. If you’ll recall, the Brewers were reportedly hesitant to trade Cameron because he was a FOCC (Friend of CC). Now that CC is gone, Milwaukee is again looking for a deal.

In November, word was that the Brewers were looking at Melky Cabrera and Ian Kennedy. In this round of talks, it appeared all but certain that a Cabrera-for-Cameron deal would happen, conveniently sending CC’s buddy to NY along with the ace. But then another report surfaced that the Yanks wanted Bill Hall, too — another FOCC — and and the Brewers again suggested they receive some pitching, with the quality of said pitching influencing whether the Brewers would pay any of Cameron’s salary.

So then what happened? Well, according to Ken Rosenthal, the deal ground to a standstill when New York and Milwaukee couldn’t agree how much of Cameron’s salary Milwaukee would pay. Now, if you’re the Brewers and you’re trading Cameron and Hall in large part to dump payroll, isn’t it irksome to be asked to keep paying their salaries, even in part? And if your trading partner is the Yankees — who, if you’ll recall, just snagged the Brewers’ most coveted offseason target by offering him about $60MM more than the Brewers could afford — isn’t it a little bit insulting, too? “You really need to defray the cost of Cameron’s 10 mil salary, guys, because we just gave 161 mil to CC. Oh, and we’re trying to sign Burnett, Lowe, and Teixeira, too. I mean, our hands are really tied here. This recession is just killing us.”

But here’s the real punchline: the pitcher New York suggested? Kei Igawa.

Yowza.