A few weeks ago when the Padres were playing the Marlins, I put together a team of guys who played for both teams. It was fun to do and since I currently have blogger's block and can't think of anything original to type about, I decided to revisit the theme with our present opponent, the Milwaukee Brewers.
Like before, the qualifications for making the team were simple: they just needed to play for both teams at some point. I went with career stats as opposed to the numbers they put up with just the Padres and/ or Brewers; if I had done that a lot of these selections would be different. Since the Brewers have been around for 23 years longer than the Marlins, there was of course a larger pool to choose from. Without any further yada yada, let's start out with the starting lineup:
C- Tom Lampkin
1B- Russell Branyan
2B- Mark Loretta
SS- Tony Fernandez
3B- Gary Sheffield
LF- Greg Vaughn
CF- Jim Edmonds
RF- Matt Stairs
Before I did this, I didn't even know Tony Fernandez ever played for the Brewers. Turns out it was for just 28 games in 2001, his final season. They released him after two months and he joined the Blue Jays for the fourth time before retiring at the end of the season. I'll chalk that up as the one thing I've learned today. Edmonds makes the team despite tanking his short time as a Padre and getting paid a ton of money to leave San Diego. I really, really wanted to leave him off.
Bench:
C- Henry Blanco
Util.- Kurt Bevacqua
Util.- Jerry Hairston, Jr.
OF- Mike Cameron
OF/1B- Rob Deer
Hairston, like Edmonds, is another testament of me not allowing my grudge-holding to prevent me from putting together the best team baseball-wise. Because, man, I seriously don't like that holier-than-thou liar. Sorry, just had to get that in there before I moved on to the arms.
Rotation:
Randy Wolf
Jeff Suppan
Ricky Bones
Dick Selma
Glendon Rusch
Not an ace amongst the bunch, but they did each have some semi-solid seasons. Good thing they're backed by a lethal 'pen.
Bullpen:
Trevor Hoffman
Rollie Fingers
Mark Davis
Mike Adams
Scott Linebrink
Danny Frisella
Jesse Orosco
Better hope you get a lead off the starter if you're playing these guys. You've got two Cy Young Award winning closers, one of them a Hall of Famer, and that's before you even get to the closer. The rest of the guys weren't exactly slouches either.
There are 48 other players who played for both teams that didn't make the 25-man roster. Notable names that didn't make the cut include Tony Gwynn, Jr, Jody Gerut, Mark Kotsay, Eric Owens, Eric Young, Jeff Cirillo, and Dickie Thon. There's no other starting pitching to fall back on when one or more of them would inevitably need Tommy John surgery, so that would be a problem.