Stumping for Mike Cameron

Mike Cameron just wrapped up a 4.5 WAR season with the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve gotten good value out of him the past two years - he posted 8.5 WAR in his age 35 and 36 seasons for them while being paid $16.3mm, a savings of $20 million dollars for the small-market Brewers. Cameron has been a fine player for the Brewers, but they’ve got to be surprised by how he thrived. In his 4 previous seasons (all in the NL), he posted WAR values of 3.2 and 2.0 (with the Mets) and 4.4 and 2.2 (with the Padres). You’d think that those numbers are largely due to the fact that he played 50% of his games in strong pitchers parks for those 4 years, but his wOBAs were actually pretty respectable for a CF (.344, .362, .360, .334, respectively). The big difference was actually defense - his CF UZR/150 in those years were 4.3, -5.3, -0.6, and, -10.4. Moving to Milwaukee seemed to help his glove more than his bat, as he posted an impressive 15.6 UZR/150 in 2008 and a still-impressive 9.0 in 2009. This is a total WAG, but even if you think his production slips a little from age you have to believe he can easily still be a ~3 WAR player over the next two seasons. Cameron is also a type B free agent (further evidence of the ridiculousness of the Elias system), which should make him more signable. He has expressed a desire to stay with the Brewers though, and you have to think they’ll offer him arbitration since the FA compensation price tag is less likely to scare other teams away. I seem to remember people here talking about how Cameron is not a fan of the wrigley bleacher crowd, but the Googles seem to be failing me right now. One other thing is that Cameron played under Pineilla in Seattle, and I would not be surprised if Lou stumps for the Cubs to sign him.