FanHouse Milwaukee

John Hammond has had an awfully busy first few months as the Bucks GM, finding a coach, preparing for the draft and swinging a semi-blockbuster deal for Richard Jefferson. He can now cross one more thing off his list: giving his franchise center an extension.

Andrew Bogut has agreed on a five-year deal that could be worth up to $72.5 million, including $60 million of guaranteed money. That's not quite as much per year as Chris Paul (who was selected three spots below Bogut in 2005 and recently agreed to a four-year, $68 million deal), but it's certainly a hefty raise and will easily set him up for life. Bogut is in Australia at the moment preparing for the Olympics with his country's national team, but he's expected to fly to the U.S. so he can officially put pen to paper on Friday.

It's still unclear what Hammond's master plan looks like (will Michael Redd remain part of the picture? will Ramon Sessions supplant Mo Williams as the team's point guard of the future), but locking up his up-and-coming big man was a no-brainer. Sure, the Bucks would probably take Paul or Deron Williams if given a do-over on the 2005 draft, but if Bogut continues to improve at his current pace he could be an All-Star this coming season.

It's hard to imagine a better way to kick off the mad dash to baseball's trade deadline than with the Brewers and Cubs pulling trades for big-name pitchers within two days of each other. Of course, those moves raise a pretty big question: who's the favorite to win the division now? Let's break it down.

Definitely not favorites: Pirates, Astros, and Reds. The Reds are young and exciting but at least a year away, the Pirates seem to be meandering down the right road but they're still way down the path in the wrong direction, and the Astros are a disaster area.

The Cardinals: This team perplexes me. By all accounts they shouldn't be very good, and yet they've still got the second best record in the NL and are ahead of the Brewers in the Wild Card standings. They probably won't join in the arms race with the Cubs and Brewers, but they get Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter back from the DL in pretty short fashion. Still, they're short on offense besides Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick, it's hard to know what to expect out of Carpenter after missing most of a season and a half, and Kyle Lohse is a prime candidate to turn into a pumpkin.

It's been a wild week in the world of baseball, as Milwaukee has fired the first warning shot by trading their top prospect and others for CC Sabathia. The Cubs swiftly responded by prying away Rich Harden from the Oakland Athletics.

Some of you may be confused, some of you may be hurt, but for most of you, your heads are spinning. That's okay. Because the MLB 'Haus is here to help make sense of it all. AOL Baseball Editor Andrew Johnson and I are here to chat about not only Sabathia and Harden, but anything you want about the world of baseball ... whether it be the Mets putting up a touchdown on Tim Lincecum, the Braves signing Julian Tavarez, Barry Bonds ... anything you want. Won't you join us at 1PM ET?

The Indians traded CC Sabathia to the Brewers in part because they're convinced that he's determined to add an extra comma digit to his contract this winter (he turned down a $72 million extension in January in hopes of finding something in excess of $100 million). Before being officially introduced to Milwaukee's media on Monday, though, there was a different bit of punctuation on Sabathia's mind:

From here on out, Carsten Charles Sabathia is just "CC" Sabathia - not "C.C."

After holding a news conference Monday to announce they'd made a trade to acquire the reigning AL Cy Young award winner from Cleveland, a member of the Brewers public relations staff advised media members that Sabathia prefers to have his initials written without periods.

And you thought the perks of being a big leaguer stopped at fancy cars and groupies. No sir, once you make it to The Show, the rules of grammar literally no longer apply. I suppose this explains why so many athletes like to speak in the third person ...

Just in case you're curious (and if you're still reading, I'm sure it was in the back of your mind), the team did make sure to clarify that J.J. Hardy would be holding onto his periods for the time being. It's nice to know you can rely on something in these crazy times.

Crisis averted, if you let the reports Richard Jefferson had been displeased at being shipped to Milwaukee bother you much. As often happens with these things, Jefferson made to Milwaukee and seems happy now. In his introductory press conference today, Jefferson revealed what made the trade sweeter than originally perceived.

After calming down and evaluating I looked at the opportunity here. An opportunity to get back to the playoffs and I really don't think the Nets are going to be headed there in the next couple years. They've voiced that with some of the moves they've made.

The two moves, of course, being Jefferson's trade (for Yi Jianlian) and the Jason Kidd-Devin Harris swap. To be honest, the point guard maneuvering likely served to make the 2008-09 Nets more potent than the previous version. But Jeff's right: there's no way to dust the Yi/Bobby Simmons acquisition as anything but "building for the future."

Meanwhile, though some have penciled Milwaukee in for contention for a lower Eastern playoff seed, it seems like Jefferson's ability has been sold short. He's a greater scorer (9th per-game last season) but an efficient shooter who gets to the line and takes the bad three sparingly. His rebounding has fallen off -- with little team-based excuse -- in recent years, and (as Jefferson admits in the presser) his defense needs to be resuscitated. Let the magic of Scott Skiles' perfectly manicured fingertips take control.

As anyone that closely followed the Erik Bedard saga last winter knows, it can be a long way from "We've agreed on a deal in principle" to players actually switching teams. Things aren't going to take that long with this Brewers/Indians trade, though, because the Brewers have announced a press conference for noon (11 AM Central) and if they don't announce a C.C. Sabathia trade, then .... actually, don't worry about it. They're announcing the trade.

The other key today is that the trade has expanded from "Matt LaPorta and someone" to "Matt LaPorta, Zach Jackson, Rob Bryson, and someone that may or may not be Taylor Green." Jackson's not much, but Bryson's an extremely young reliever with some good numbers in the low minors and Green's a good-hitting, young third base prospect.

If Green is the fourth piece of the puzzle for the Indians, they managed to pull about as good of a haul from the Brewers system that they could ask for without getting Alcides Escobar or Mat Gamel. The Brewers, meanwhile, managed to pick up the best available starting pitcher by only giving up one blue chip prospect. It's pretty rare that a trade like this ends up as a win for both teams, but at least it's got a chance to shake out well for both the Brewers and Indians.

What happens when you take a team that's 20-11 since June 1st, currently sitting with the second best winning percentage in the National League, and add one Carsten Charles Sabathia to the mix? Ladies and gentleman, we've got a new favorite for the National League pennant. Maybe that's hideously reactionary, since we're talking about a team that's still 3.5 games behind the Cubs and tied with the Cardinals for the NL Wild Card at the moment, but I don't think so.

OK, time for a breather. It's only July 6th. It's too soon to be talking about favorites. What's clear, though, is that the Brewers think that they can make a run at more than just a playoff spot this year. With Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder starting to come around at the plate and Manny Parra finally finding his footing in the rotation, they were going to be real contenders without Sabathia. Now they've added the reigning AL Cy Young winner to their mix without taking anything away from their Major League club. They've got to be liking their chances at Miller Park right now.

The question now? What does the rest of the National League do? The Cubs, lest we forget, are already a really good baseball team, with six regulars posting above average OPSs this year, four starting pitchers with above average ERAs, and a good bullpen, so maybe calling the Brewers the favorites is a wee bit premature. The Phillies are quite good, but their rotation is painfully thin. The entire National League West should probably start with a prayer. Remember all those NL Central jokes everyone made last year? Put 'em on the shelves, because right now it looks like it's going to take an upset for someone from another division to get to the World Series.

The Brewers apparently don't feel content walking down the Cubs in regular fashion (they are only 3 1/2 games back) and have instead decided, according to Tom Haudricourt's Brewers Blog at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, to trade for C.C. Sabathia.

I just was told by a reliable club source that the Brewers have a deal in place with Cleveland for left-hander C.C. Sabathia, contingent on the paperwork being done and medical records exchanged.

But believe me, folks, that's a deal. All that other stuff is formality.

All I know so far is that top prospect Matt LaPorta is in the deal. I was told two lower-level minor leaguers also are included. The Brewers refused to include another top prospect such as Alcides Escobar or Mat Gamel.

Obviously this is huge news; Sabathia has been the primary name mentioned in all major trade talks over the past few months. Word had not-so-quietly leaked that the Indians were willing to concede this season in the AL Central and look to acquire young talent in exchange for the free agent to be. LaPorta fills that need as he ranks at the top of the Brewers farm system and could be an impact player in Cleveland in the near future. More details as the facts surrounding the trade get released.

The trade deadline is always a dangerous time for a team like the Brewers. When a player like C.C. Sabathia is on the move, there are a million different things that can happen. And still, the Brewers seem so close to landing C.C. right now that they're almost counting on him coming to Milwaukee sooner rather than later. You can hear it in Doug Melvin's quote in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"Mark said he'd be in touch with me," Melvin said, referring to Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro. "I'm sure they've got to think through everything."

The sticking point right now appears to be who gets included in the trade after Matt LaPorta. The Indians want another top prospect, but the Brewers think that's too much to trade for a guy that's not a slam dunk to be in a Brewers uniform in 2009.

How much is too much for the Brewers to give up for Sabathia? There's no doubting that they miss Yovani Gallardo and a second ace makes them a force in the National League, but they're currently just a game out of a playoff spot and playing very well with the team configured as is. LaPorta is a guy without a position that they can probably afford to give up, but giving up another top prospect seems like it's just too much for a rental player.

Recently, the myth of point guard purity has been a bit of a personal bleating issue for me. Consider me thrilled, then, to see new Bucks general manager John Hammond address it head-on in a wide-ranging interview with BrewHoop. Hammond takes issue with the assertion shooting PG Mo Williams isn't a good match for wing scorers Michael Redd and Richard Jefferson.

"To be an NBA effective player, you have to be able to make shots. If you don't have a guy that can shoot the ball like Mo or make plays like Mo, then guys like Jefferson or Michael aren't going to get open as easily. So anytime you have a scorer on the floor I think he can complement other people. Everyone's looking for the consummate point guard, but there are just so few of those."

And, as we've learned with Jason Kidd, being the "consummate point guard" isn't necessarily a boon. Assists and "pointguardness" are severely misunderstood concepts in the NBA; that many recent championship teams have lacked a top-flight point guard (Derek Fisher, Jason Williams, Rajon Rondo?) seems to be lost on pundits as we all search for the next Steve Nash (who has actually shot a lot more the past couple years).

Jefferson and Redd have been very efficient scorers in the recent past. If Williams and the frontcourt can also score efficiently, there will be little problem overall with Milwaukee's offense. And there shouldn't be -- this is a talented offensive team. The real consternation regarding the Buck backcourt should come on the other end, where neither Williams nor Redd have shown they can be consistently stout defenders.

(Be sure to check out the first two parts [I, II] of BrewHoop's Hammond interview as well.)