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On the surface, the Brewers' handling of shortstop J.J. Hardy seems strange. They sent their veteran shortstop to Triple-A Nashville early in August, saying at the time it was being done to make room for top prospect Alcides Escobar. Then Tuesday they called up Hardy and said he'd be playing shorstop for the rest of the season. What gives? When Hardy was sent down, Dave Cameron at FanGraphs wrote a post detailing how any lengthy demotion of Hardy would delay free agency for him by a year. That means that Hardy, now under team control for two more years, is a much more desirable trade target in the offseason. And Hardy himself seems to know it, saying that the move "makes sense."
Regardless of the ethics of such a move (and really, given Hardy's production in the past, this sort of thing is very, very shady), it means that Hardy has one month to make up for his currently dismal 2009 showing (he's hitting .229/.300/.365 with just 11 home runs, a far cry from the 50 he bashed in 2007 and 2008 combined) and try to show teams he's still got some semblance of the form that made him an All-Star in 2007.
One would think that even without a huge month, Hardy would still be worth something to someone. In the two years prior to this one, the combination of his bat and his slick fielding made him among the most valuable shortstops in all of baseball in both seasons. In fact, only Hanley Ramirez, Jimmy Rollins, and Jose Reyes had more Wins Above Replacement (WAR) over the two seasons.
Despite his bad bat this year, Hardy's glove has still been very good and with the extra year of arbitration that he now has, the Brewers will almost certainly be able to find him a new home.
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