Bear with me here.  As most of you know, I have rooting (and I don't care what "rooting" means in Australia) interest in a certain NL Central team in addition to the Angels.  The Brewers had a great 2nd half of April and May, surged into first place in their division, but have dropped since due to injuries (Rickie Weeks, Dave Bush) and lack of starting pitching depth (after Yovani Gallardo, Jeff Suppan is statistically their 2nd-best starter right now!)  The Brewers have gone from buyers a week ago to potential sellers today, as the result of an abysmal start to the 2nd half.  (Consecutive blowout losses to the Nationals will do that to a team.)  On BrewCrewBall today (Brewers SBNation site) someone mentioned what they thought Angels might be willing to give up for bullpen help.

Now, I understand that the Angels would like to shore up their starting rotation.  But Cliff Lee is gone, and we're not going to pay the asking price for Halladay, so let's accept that a front-line Ace isn't going to happen.  And the Brewers need starting pitching, too, so they won't give up anybody (other than Jeff Suppan, but nobody would want him).  Our other big weakness this season has been the bullpen.  What do the Brewers have to offer?  How about the all-time saves leader?  Can you picture a Hoffman/Fuentes righty/lefty combo?  Fuentes has worked as a setup man in Colorado, and Hoffman might have the added advantage that most AL batters have very limited experience against him. 

According to Elias, Hoffman is expected to be a type A Free Agent at the end of the year, so he'd also bring a couple of draft picks.  That has to be part of the equation, because if he isn't traded the Brewers would be happy to offer him arbitration and take the picks if he turned them down.  But since picks are riskier than already-developed prospects, I think they'd be willing to trade him for the right package of minor-league talent.  So what would you trade for a Hoffman?