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Just to be clear, I really don't have some kind of personal vendetta against Mike Cameron -- I just don't think he's what the Brewers needed. In a chat with fans on the team's official web site, GM Doug Melvin explains why he felt differently.

millerdrinker: Doug, why didn't we bring in a left-handed bat?

Doug: We could not find a left-handed bat that brought the skill sets that Mike Cameron brought to our team -- Gold Glove defense, outstanding baserunning, clubhouse leadership and a high batting average with runners in scoring position.

Gold Glove defense? Yeah, I'll buy that, though at 35 years old, maybe for not very long. Outstanding baserunning? No complaints here -- he's been successful over 78% of the time he's tried to steal a base. Clubhouse leadership? Umm ... from a guy who's admitted to playing drunk and will miss the first 25 games of 2008 for testing positive twice for a banned substance? Maybe his teammates like him, but there's a difference between popularity and setting a good example.

And that last thing, a high batting average with runners in scoring position? Yeah, strike two. He hit .275 with RISP last year. Even if the ability to hit with runners on was some kind of innate skill that carried over from one season to the next (it's not), .275 is remarkably average. And I mean that literally: the average of all MLB hitters with runners in position last year was .272. Basically, the quality of being "clutch" doesn't exist, but if it did, Cameron wouldn't have it.

Cameron is what he is: a career .251 hitter with a ton of strikeouts who happens to make impressive catches in the outfield. If he were as good as Melvin is making him out to be, the Brewers would have signed him for longer than just one year.