Andrew Brown was included with Odalis Perez when the Dodgers traded Gary Sheffield to Atlanta, making Brown one degree of separation from the Sheffield-Mike Piazza trade.

Can't say I'm thrilled about losing a good pitching prospect in the 23-year-old Brown, who has averaged more than a strikeout per inning in his career, including 58 strikeouts in 40 1/3 innings with Jacksonville this season, to Cleveland in order to complete the Milton Bradley trade. Franklin Gutierrez, already sent to Cleveland's AA team in Akron, is having a fine season in the minors, while Bradley has been sparkling on an inconsistent basis in the majors.

I'm not arguing that the now-completed trade wasn't fair for both teams, but considering that the Indians are rebuilding, I think they did well for themselves in picking up two solid prospects for the future.

But because Gutierrez was the No. 2 hitting prospect in the Dodger organization behind James Loney, Dodger fans had reason to hope that the second player traded to Cleveland would be more on the fringe level.

Brown may well have been a compromise between the fringe and the Joel Hanrahan/Edwin Jackson/Greg Miller triumverate.

Update: In other news, former Dodger senior vice president of communications Derrick Hall has been named vice president of communications for KB Home, which coincidentally was co-founded in 1957 by recent Dodger ownership candidate Eli Broad. Broad is no longer directly involved with the company.