According to Newsday, Kevin Millar will be traded to the Houston Astros for reliever Chad Qualls.
Sounds good to me. Millar hasn't been his normal self this season, and we have capable backups in John Olerud and Kevin Youkilis who can split the duties and produce better numbers than what Millar has been doing this season. The only thing we'll miss is his clubhouse presence, which is very important. It may hurt the team mentally because the whole team kind of revolves around him, but if it needs to be done, then let's do it. I'm not going to cry over losing Millar (if this trade does go down), but his presence will certainly be missed. His production, though, is a different case.
Qualls is a 26 year old reliever in his second professional season. Qualls finished last season with a 3.55 earned run average in 33.0 innings pitched. This season he has been just as effective, as in 42.2 innings he has a 3.89 ERA with lefties hitting only .208 off of him. He has had 2 great months this season, with May dragging him down as he had a 9.58 ERA during that month. Every other month though has been 2.57 or lower, so there is some bright side with him.
If we bring in both Qualls and Chad Bradford, we're going to have to get rid of Alan Embree in the process. If we get Gabe Kapler, then we'll lose another player in that process. But adding both these relievers and losing Embree isn't something I'll be disappointed about. I may be the one who thinks Embree should be gone the most.