Brewers to sign Alex Gonzalez

Word is from Ken Rosenthal that the Brewers will sign SS Alex Gonzalez to a one year deal with a vesting option.

Alex spent last year with the Braves and hit .241/.270/.372 with 15 home runs in 593 plate appearances. He is considered to be an above average fielder.

This will end the fear that Betancourt will return. Now... to sign a 3b...

Winter Meetings Catch Up

Hey all. A million short stories for you.

So word is it's looking like Takashi Saito will resign a one year deal with the Brewers.

After word that there was no interest in bringing back reliever Latroy Hawkins, word is now that the Brewers do have interest.

Rumor has it that SS Rafael Furcal is not being targeted by the Brewers.

A hundred speculations regarding SS Jimmy Rollins. Rollins is reportedly seeking a 5 year deal, with his Phillies only offering 3. The Brewers were then considered to be favorites, but rumors now shift towards him resigning with the Phillies.

The number one rumor out there now is getting former Cum 3b Aramis Ramirez. He is reportedly seeking a deal in the neighborhood of 3 years $10-$15mm per. He would like to stay near his Chicago home and has expressed interest in coming to Milwaukee. If the Brewers do sign Ramirez, it would probably mean the return of Betancourt at SS, and Casey McGehee would probably platoon with Mat Gamel over at 1b, as well as supply some utility type help.

Also, there has been some speculation as to whether or not Francisco Rodriguez may accept the Brewer's offer of arbitration. The market for closers has been weird and lots of guys seem to be available. It'd be nice to have that 8th inning help, but the price would be pretty steep (around $13mm).

In other news the Marlins may start to target Fielder after the end of the crazy bidding war over Pujols if the Cardinals indeed come out on top. I would much rather have Prince in Florida than Chicago...



That's it for now. Hopefully we'll get some signing info soon. It's been a fun couple days.

Winter Meetings are Here!

So today is the start of the Winter Meetings, where baseball's, well, everyone, gets together to plan pretty much everything.

Doug Melvin said it will likely be a quiet one for the Brewer's this year, but stuff could happen. Appparently reliever Latroy Hawkins will attend with his agent again, the same method he used two years ago before signing with Milwaukee. Word has come out of ESPN Deportes in Los Angeles that the Brewers are also interested in free agent righty Octavio Dotel, who put up a 3.50 ERA in 65 games for the Cardinals and Blue Jays last season. Dotel apparently has a one year offer in hand from the Cardinals.

In shortstop related news, it was said that Melvin was scheduled to meet with Jose Reyes agent at the Meetings, however that's all moot considering Reyes signed a 6 year deal with the Marlins. However, ESPN's Buster Olney tweets (@Buster_ESPN) that Milwaukee maybe a prime competitor with Philly for the services of Jimmy Rollins. This is the first real connection I've seen between Milwaukee and Rollins... I kind of don't see it happening.

One thing that's been up lately is increased talk about Milwaukee being a player to bring Prince Fielder back. This is in part due to the slowly developing market for him. However, I don't see this, Boras is pretty notorious for waiting things out, and I think everyone will wait until Pujols is off the board before going after Prince.

Adam Kennedy to Dodgers

So as important as the search for a shortstop and for a decent bullpen is, as well as figuring out the futures of both first and third, finding quality bench players is also key.

I haven't really discussed this before, but all three of the Brewers' major bench players from a season ago have left. Counsell may or may not retire, but won't be offered a contract from the Brewers. Mark Kotsay has taken a spot with his hometown Padres, and Jack Wilson was let go.

We have a decent 4th outfielder in Carlos Gomez, but it stops there. Perhaps we can pick up a guy from the minors (maybe Zelous Wheeler?) but we should probably find a veteran infielder and a veteran outfielder to keep the team together.

Adam Kennedy was one of those guys. He can hit a little, and plays practically everywhere. He just signed a 1 year contract with the Dodgers worth $800k, and up to $150k in incentives. That is somebody we couldn't have used, and I hope GM Doug Melvin isn't too preoccupied with his other searches to find us something usefull (and I hope we have the money). However, we have had some luck with waiver pick ups before (see Joe Inglett and last years Jack Wilson as examples.

Later.

Free Agent Updates

So, two of my three predictions for Brewers Free Agency have already been wrong.

Jamey Carroll signed a two year deal with the Twins. (I'm also pretty upset about the Pirates picking up Barmes, I would have liked him too. Can't we just once sign somebody for defense?)

More recently, Jonathan Broxton signed a one year deal with the Royals. I would have liked that one.

In more bullpen type news apparently the Brewers have been in contact with the agent for Takashi Saito, who though old, did a pretty fine job for the Brewers last year. The Brewers need to sign at least one reliever this offseason, maybe a lefty too. Mitch Stetter was refused his assignment to AAA and has now left the organization.

Movie Review? Sure: Moneyball

So this is going to be a pretty special feature, with this post appearing both here, on Brewing Beerball, but also on my movies blog, Cream City Movie Review. Never really though I'd get that fun overlap, but here we are.

I was kind of hoping I could kind of just copy and paste this review, as it would be easy, and there would be serious overlap, but when I first wrote this for Cream City I wanted to talk so much baseball, but didn't want to explain, so this will largly be a rewrite with less movie, and much more baseball talk.

So, I really wanted to see this movie. Largly because of my love of baseball and my enjoyment of the book, but also because of the awesome cast and crew that was rounded up for this feature. The director here is Bennett Miller, the writer is Oscar Nominee Aaron Sorkin. The book you should all probably know (of the same title, plus "The Art of Winning an Unfair Game) by Michael Lewis, who is also the man responsible for the book behind the film Blind Side. On the Cast side we start with Brad Pitt as the main character Billy Beane. Jonah Hill does a fine job as his assistant, Peter Brand, and Philip Seymour Hoffman supports as the A's Manager, Art Howe.

First, a quick rant. I'm not a huge fan of making movies about things in progress. Blindside is about a guy who is still in the NFL. Social Network as about a guy who still runs Facebook. Moneyball is about a guy who still heads the A's. I blame the trend in reality television, oh well.

Moneyball follows Billy Beane through a baseball season with him at the helm of the generally broke Oakland A's. He realizes that considering the disparaging amount of resources at the disposal of different teams he must do something different. The movie chronicles what happened to him over the course of this season, and also looks back at Beane's own life.

The story overall, is great. The acting great. The visuals great. I think it does a pretty fine job of energizing what really isn't a whole lot of anything. It's people taking about baseball, and as much as I myself love to do that, making a movie about it doesn't seem entirely intriging. Michael Lewis' book was fun because it described in much more detail the people involved. Some of the players and secondary staff introduced in the movie have entire chapters in the book. So that was handled well. I saw the film with my mother, who is not a sports person. She like it even more than I did. I'll say that's because I happen to know more about baseball than the movie showed, and really the story of Beane is kinda old by now. On a sad note, one of my favorite lines of the book, which I very seriously burst out in laughter while reading, was left out. "Prince Fielder was too fat even for the Oakland A's".

Now, to get basebally. An interesting thing of note is the character Peter Brand. When I saw the movie I said to myself, "Why don't I know this guy's name?". I knew he was still in baseball, but couldn't place him. Well, Brand represents Paul DePodesta of course. Apparently DePodesta was the only person involved who would not give permission for his likeness to be used for the movie. Cheers to him. He is currently the VP of Player Development and Scouting for the Mets.

This movie is of course exactly that, a movie. It portrays the A's season as a single magical thing with any real background, and gives probably both Beane and "Brand" too much credit for introducing SABR and advanced metrics into baseball. At least Bill James was discussed in the film. There are some very good books out there on the history of statistics in baseball, I can't place the title now, but it really is worth looking into.

On more of a Brewers type note, I kind of liked the portrayl of Art Howe, who was shown to be very much a "baseball guy" with how he played the game, much to Beane's chagrin. It shows that when the team really started to win, Howe finally listened to Beane. Now this was a criticism of Ken Macha when he came over to helm Milwaukee. Sure he had been a winner in Oakland, but they had good pitching and Billy Beane is the true Manager of the A's... kinda seemed that way during his time with the Crew...

I'm getting pretty long winded, but here's for a pretty quick musing. So Oakland, who was the earliest, and still may be the most involved franchise with advanced metrics and whatnot, has done an awesome job of drafting pitchers, but have not done much at all in the way of developing position players. I wonder if there is correlation of numbers here. If pitchers are going to be good have they always put up numbers? Are hitters more likely to grow and develop in a way which stats themselves don't and can't show accurately, which then neccesitates the use of uber subjective rating systems which Beane rejects? Interesting thoughts. Though Oakland mighta hit the nail on the head with Jemille Weeks... Brewer's did draft him earlier though, stupid college.

That's it for now. More for serious Baseball talk later. Not much moving in the Free Agent market now, but winter meetings next week, and I'll totally amp up the blogging for that.

Sveum to Manage Cubs, Gamel Waits for 1st Chance

Longtime Brewer's coach, perhaps most well known for his managing the team during the 2008 playoffs following the dismissal of Ned Yest, current hitting coach Dale Sveum has been tapped to be the new manager for the Chicago Cubs.

I was somewhat dissapointed when Sveum was passed over for the managers spot in 2009, a post which later went to Ken Macha. Luckily he stayed on to be the hitting coach and just seemed like a great guy to have around the team. He interviewed for both Chicago and Boston this off season, and had ties to both organizations. Sveum both played and coached for Boston, and new Cubs President Theo Epstein was the GM in Boston during Sveum's coaching tenure there. I thought I'd see him go to Boston personally, and am a little sad I'm going to have to see a guy that I like wearing Cubbie pinstripes.

But congrats to Dale Sveum and his first big league managing gig. He deserves it.



So what has essentially come out of all the talks surrounding Prince Fielder this off season is that Mat Gamel will be the Brewers first bagger in 2012. Gamel is out of options and continues to crush the ball in the Minors. Some issues have been raised regarding his attitude, first during the 2011 spring training where he showed up late several times, and after this most recent season, where AAA Nashville manager Don Money made some pretty harsh comments regarding Gamel. I'm not making excuses for Mat or anything here, but some of this could be a guy who is killing it in the minors and mad he's never been given a shot. He's been shuffled around the diamond, starting at 3rd, getting time in the outfield, and now moved over to first. He commented shortly after the move that he was not pleased by it, but reports have come in that he's really put effort into it and should shape up to be at least a passable first baseman (not that Milwaukee is used to have a brick wall at first anyway).




Also, just want to throw out there that Tom Hardricourt over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal seems to be leaning more and more towards feeling that Doug Melvin will resign Betancourt for 2012. This would be a disaster in my opinion. I'm not sure why we would want a shortstop on only a one year deal. There are no minor league SS in our system... I would think a two year deal for someone would allow something to develop more. Word on the street is that Furcal is looking for two years and an option, sounds alright to me.

Milwaukee Welcomes Baseball's GMs

Today is the official start of the GM meetings, happening this year in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I think the baseball Gods are smiling upon us because this is a beautiful day for the middle of November.

So the GM meetings are really just a precursor to the single most exciting event of the off-season, which is of course the winter meetings. However, there still should be some good things happening. Word on the street is there are lots of agents in town this year.

In Brewers news Reyes is still, naturally, a hot topic for conversation in the rumor mill. Tom Hardricourt stands by his view that the Brewers don't have the payroll to sign him. Another new word in though from Jon Heyman, saying that he hears the the Brewers' number one target is Reyes. Sounds like the Marlins have set the bidding now with a 6 year $90 million deal ($15m/year). I'm a little surprise by this. I didn't think right out of the gate we would get a 6 year offer... however I did think we would see something north of 15 million annually. Some skeptics out there say that the slew of offers being thrown out of Miami (to Pujols, Madsen, Buerle, and Reyes) are largly for show, good offers in and of themselves, but not really enough to sign anyone. We'll see...

In more realistic news Doug Melvin continues to show interest in Yuniesky Betancourt, saying that he talked to his agent. I get the feeling Melvin would like a one year deal, which Yu-Bet could probably be had on (considering a lot of people don't think he should even be a starting player...). There has also been a "tire kicking" on Rafael Furcal, the former Cardinal who hit six home runs last year, five of which were against the Brewers... So back to Reyes, Melvin did admit to speaking with the speedy switch-hitter's agent on the phone, once, and with "no numbers".

So hopefully some interesting developments will happen over the next few days here in Milwaukee. Also, congrats to Justin Verlander on his unanimous choice for AL Cy Young award winner. Great year.

Later.

More Reyes Rumors

So, here it is again. Another word out there talking about Reyes being a target of the Brewers. This one comes from SI writer Jon Heyman (@SI_JonHeyman), saying that Brewers have their doubts about resigning Prince, so have given up and shifted aim to Reyes.

Plausible. I wonder where guys get this stuff... Tom Hardricourt over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal stil has his doubts too. He reiterated that the Brewers [and probably quite a few other teams] have real concern over the health of Reyes' legs.

I hope to finish a write up of my ideas regarding how signing Reyes could rework the Brewers' lineup to awesomeness. Look for that in the next day or so.

Someone thinks Reyes to Milwaukee...

So, I'm still standing by my initial prediction that Milwaukee will not sign free agent shortstop Jose Reyes, MLB Trade Rumors does, and now Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) of ESPN thinks so too. He recently tweeted that he was unsure of were Reyes would land, but that Milwaukee would be a great fit, and that we have the money.

I agree on the "fit" part, whether or not we have the money remains to be seen. Payroll for 2012 has been estimated giving us under $10 million to spend, not enough for Reyes. It is possible we shed payroll via trades or non tenders (perhaps McGehee, or Kottaras, or others) but some revamping work still needs to be done to the bullpen, so at least $3 million should be held onto for that... Tom Hardricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal seems to share my sentiments, and whether or not this is true, I always seem to trust beat writers more than national ones, especially when gauging what a team is trying to do...

Top Free Agents

Hey everyone.

Recently the awesome blog MLBTradeRumors.com did an article outlining their Top 50 free agents of the 2012 off season and offered their opinion on where these players will land.

The Brewers were involved in a total of two. The first obviously being Fielder (ranked 2nd), who is predicted to head over to Seattle. The next being Jose Reyes (ranked 3rd overall), who is predicted to sign with Milwaukee.


^^Link to the Full Article^^

As much as I would love for Milwaukee to sign a player like Reyes (and by like him, I mean an awesome player), I just don't think it's going to happen. Work that Melvin has interest in bring back the perpetual disapointment Betancourt has really made me feel like that will happen, probably for something like 1 year, $2-$3 million.

However I do think we will make a signing (or two or three even) someway farther down the list.

If a shortstop other than Betancourt is to be signed I think it is much more likely it is much more likely to be somebody like Jamey Carroll, or perhaps Rafael Furcal. Personally, I'm most intrigued by Carroll, a guy with a career OBP of over .345.

Beyond that, do to the mass exodus of almost everyone from our bullpen, I see a signing there happening. K-Rod, Hawkins, and Saito are all free agents, and all three played a fairly central role to the team, especially down the stretch. Now, with what is likely to be a decrease in offensive production (though I do think it will be less than some people fear) I really feel like GM Doug Melvin will sign some depth.

I predict a resigning of either Hawkins or Saito, almost for sure. There is some possibility of bringing back both, but I'm not sure you want to risk of two old men anchoring your late innings group. There could be somebody like Frank Francisco, who's put a decent string of years together, most recently with the Blue Jays. Also, Melvin has shown before that he's willing to take a chance on a reliever, and Jonathan Broxton could be that man here. I really doubt somebody offers him a closers roll after two poor, and one injury riddled seasons. However a nice incentive laden deal could probably get him. If Broxton returns to even close to his 2009 form he would be a bargain.

So, my free agent predictions for the Brewers will be Jamey Carroll, Latroy Hawkins, and Jonathan Broxton.

A look at shortstop

Yuniesky Betancourt is not the answer at shortstop for the Brewers. I think that can probably be agreed upon by most people. Third in the league in errors at SS, mixed with poor range makes him a liability in the field (especially paired with the less than fleet of foot McGehee, who lead the league in errors as a 3B). His batting average was just 8th, and OBP was 10th out of 11 shortstops who qualified for the batting title. His option is $6mm, his buyout is $2mm. It seems like it would be fairly easy to find a viable replacement for the 4 million dollar difference. One issue that is being run into this upcoming offseason is a generally weak (besides Rollins and Reyes) shortstop free agent class. I plan on making a case for Reyes in upcoming posts, however, I'll look at others here just to make the arguement that under no circumstance really should Betancourt be back. Marco Scutaro Rafael Furcal Alex Gonzalez Also, let's not forget somebody can be flipped. McGehee, to me, seems to be out the door, or at least should be. He has some value remaining. That's a little speal I wrote up a few days ago. Since then the option on Betancourt has been declined (also, K-Rod's). It's important for me to note here that the Royals sent $2m over in the Grienke trade which is supposed to cover the cost of Yu-Bet's buyout. However, one interesting piece is the GM Doug Melvin has said that he would have some interest in bringing Betancourt back at a reduced rate... oh boy.

Back

Hey everyone.

Just a quick line to say that posts will be resuming very soon. First up will be a look at some minor league numbers. Of course there will be playoff discussions aplenty.

Peace.

Chris Snyder for a Pitcher?

Hey everyone,

I have a rumor here for you, Diamondback catcher Chris Snyder to the Brewers. Word on the street is that the D'backs are looking for some pitching, and they could ease the Brewers' current logjam in that category.

There was an attempt to trade Snyder to the Blue Jays over the winter for former Brewer 1B Lyle Overbay but things fell through when the Jays became over Snyder's troubled back.

Snyder is under contact for the next two seasons but is owed a hefty $11.25 million.

Not sure how I feel about that. Doubt the Brewers would want to take on any money, so really unless they send Suppan and some money I don't know how else this would work.

Oh well. Enjoying some nice Wisconsin weather while the Crew is enjoying their Spring Training off day. Less than two weeks now... Brew Up!

Stolen Bases

Hey everyone. A quick tidbit for you all.

So manager Ken Macha has said that the Brewers will be running more this season, after a near stationary stance on the base paths last season. I've commented on this before, about how there are so many guys on the team capable of 20+ stolen bases. Truly, this includes Braun, Gomez, Hart, Weeks, and Escobar. Actually, all of whom have stolen at least 20 in a season (either big league or minor league).

Put how is this panning out? Well, to date the Brewers are 23 and 4 for stolen base attempts in big league camp. And the only person to be caught stealing that will actually make the team is Counsell. Gomez leads the pack with 7 bags, outfield prospect Lorenzo Cain has 4 and 2B Rickie Weeks has 3. That is a team success rate of 85% (very good), and an average of 1.58 attempts per game.

Last season the Brewers as a team were 78-40, a 66% rate of success. Also, that is an average attempt rate of .73 SBs a game. I know this is just spring training, but I really do the Brewers will both try to steal more bases this year, and have a better success rate. Of the three regulars that are different than last year we exchange Mike Cameron (7 of 10) with Carlos Gomez (14 of 21 last year, 33 of 44 two years ago), J.J. Hardy (0 for 1) with Escobar (who was 42 of 52 in 109 games at AAA last year), and take a bit of a downgrade at catcher with Kendall (7 for 9) to Zaun (0 for 2).

Home runs should be down only marginally from last season, we are probably losing 10 or so at both center and short, but picking up 5 or so at catcher, if Weeks is healthy 10 at second, and maybe even 5 or so at right with a healthy Hart. Homers should be there, and if 78 and 40 jumps to maybe 110 and 30 it will just mean that many more runs... and lets just pray the pitching isn't as bad as last year (it can't be, can it?)

Warming up in Milwaukee, it's almost that time. Brew Up!

Some '09 Stats Fun

Hey Everyone, it's a feature!

I've decided to take a look at some 2009 pitching stats. Nothing too complicated, no WAR or FIP numbers, but some hopefully decent things to think about heading into the new season.

The Best K/BB ratio on the team was headed by 3 relievers: Hoffman, DiFelice, and Coffey (in that order), all of whom came in over 3. The next best guy was (in a limited role) actually Chris Narveson at 2.88. The best of full time starters was perennial leader Dave Bush, at 2.41 Randy Wolf came in at 2.76, up from his career average of 2.29.

The only person on the team (Axford and Swindle don't count) who stuck out more than a batter per inning was Gallardo, who K's almost 10 per 9 innings.

The best ground ball pitchers on the team were Todd Coffey, and then Jeff Suppan, Manny Parra, and Braden Looper. Todd and Soup were near had close to twice as many grounders as fly ball outs, and Manny and Looper were closer to one and a half. On the same note both DiFelice and Narveson had twice as many fly outs as ground outs, with Hoffman and Stetter not too far behind them.

Little less relevant perhaps but still interesting is the wild pitch category. Suppan, though he only throws about 45mph led the team with an even dozen, next was Yo' with that biting curve, followed by... Julio Lugo? Yea, and he only face a whopping 25 batters...

Gallardo had 19 bases stolen against him, and only two runners were thrown out with him on the mound, high leg kick I guess. Best in that category were Suppan and Looper, who allowed only 6 and 5 SBs respectively. Both also had 3 caught stealings. Also, they were the only starters last year who managed any pick offs (2 and 3). Just for comparison and fun, Chris Capuano in his career of 124 games allowed only 13 stolen bases, had 13 men caught, and picked off 28 (roughly 1 in every 5 starts, including 12 in one season, though he did also have 4 balks that year).


Well that's it for now. Have fun, enjoy the game on MLB Network tonight. Brew Up!

Iribarren Lost on Waivers to Rangers

Yesterday second baseman/utility man Hernan Iribarren was claimed off of waivers by the Texas Rangers. An interesting note here is that earlier in the off season the Brewers claimed utility man Joe Inglett from Texas.

Hernan was actually one of the longest tenured Brewers in the system, having signed out of the Dominican in 2002. He mostly played second with some center field, but had also tried his hand at short and third. He hit well over .300 in his long minor league career but only .185 in two brief Big League stints. I guess that problem with him was his lack of greatness at anything... he hit for average sure, but no real power, not an exceptional fielder, not really a utility guy... Oh well. The Brewers have an experienced utility man in Inglett now (Joe also has over 600 at bats in the Bigs) and Hernan gets to try his hand at making the Texas club, where he may have a decent shot. I kind of got the vibe about Iribarren was somewhat like Gwynn Jr., seemingly a decent player, but lacking certain tools and just never held in a high opinion by the front office...

I'm an awful blogger - Thoughts on Prince

Hey everyone. I pretty much suck. I'm disappointed in myself for my lack of work on this. I still read baseball stuff and think baseball stuff but just haven't put in the time to write baseball stuff. I've missed a bunch of good stuff, and have never gotten around to like any of the features that I wanted to do. I was really excited to write about the Jim Edmonds signing but never did.

Oh well. I'm back, somewhat. I'm still really busy with school, but I'm between jobs now so hopefully that will give some more time. My main topic today is concerning a Prince Fielder extension, which is probably a main topic for almost everybody in the whole world.

Prince is currently under contract for the 2010 season at a fairly reasonable $10.5 million. He is eligible for arbitration (and therefore under team control) for one more season.

The bottom line here is that if Prince Fielder is not signed to an extension he MUST be traded. The time frame could still be argued about, but it must happen. This year still has some hope so I don't think you could find many people shouting for his current trade (even at this years deadline...). Next off season makes the most sense to me, as it would net a larger return than waiting until the trade deadline, and would give us one more calender year or so to get an extension done. To let Fielder fly for just the draft picks would be irresponsible, and Fielder would net a Sexon like haul, and for those of you who don't know that deal fueled much of the team for some time, and its repercussions run to the present (Sexon got Overbay (amongst others), Overbay got Bush, Jackson (who was sent to Cleveland in the Sabathia deal) and Gross (who was sent to Tampa in exchange for the highly touted Butler).

So here comes my proposal for a Fielder contract. 4 years-$80 million dollars. Could structure it something like $16m, $20, $20, $20, then a $25m mutual option with a $4m buyout. I also think something just like 4 years $20m per would be fine, or 18, 20, 20, 22. Mutual options kind of seem like they're the new thing right now...

My theory here is it gives the Brewers an additional 3 years breathing room within which they can work with Wolf, Gallardo, Parra, and some of these up-and-comers like Axford, Butler, and maybe even Jeffress. However it does not get them stuck into something too long term. Why would Fielders agent Scott Boras be OK with this? Well for a couple of reasons. There is an absolute glut of free agent 1st basemen in the upcoming two years (Gonzalez, Martinez, Lee, Berkman, Pujols, Overbay, and Dunn amongst others...). Also, Prince is young enough that after this four year deal would only be 30 (maybe 31...) and should actually be entering his prime years, where another 4+ year deal would seem very possible.

From a money standpoint for the Crew I don't think it would be too big of a deal. Yes, I was one of the few people out there who was opposed to the Sabathia deal, and it was solely for money reasons. However, GM Doug Melvin has echoed my thoughts some what when he talks about the difference between hitters and pitchers. Also very important is the combination of Braun and Prince in the 3-4 holes. In 3 years or so the Brewers could still be largely home grown talent and still be raking. A lineup of something like Cain, Escobar, Braun, Fielder, Lawrie, Green/Gamel, Lucroy would be pretty nice, and three years from now many of those guys would not even be in arbitration yet, and when they are getting ready to get to that point, and hopefully coming into their own as hitters Prince will be ready to say bye-bye after his deal. Also I'm sure everyone remembers that we have over $20m coming off the books next year with Suppan, and Riske departing, and the end of the Bill Hall payments. Beyond Braun there is nobody long term except for Wolf, who has 3 years on his deal, and Hawkins who has 2011.

I had some more points to work with but this is getting pretty long and I think I hit my main ones. I'm going to try and get more stuff done, I feel guilty writing on here when I should be writing papers...

Have fun listening to Uek and the Crew, it may be crummy in Miltown, the weather may be awful in AZ too, but spring training still warms me on the inside. Brew Up!

Coffey Avoids Arbitration, Winter Warm-Up

Hey Everyone,

The big righty Todd Coffey signed a one year contract today to avoid arbitration. It was the work horse relievers second time eligible and got a nice raise from $800k to $2.025 m, which was $50k shy of the middle point of teams and his purposed salaries. He can earn that $50k in appearance based incentives. So even though my initial guess was $1.6m, my second of $1.9m was close enough for me, and I was right on about the team being closer and Todd settling south of the $2.1 m mark.

Funny side note, Coffey is actually making $2,025,002 and made $800,002 last season. This is apparently because he likes even numbers... not zero though... he is number 60.


The schedule for this years Winter Warm-Up has been officially released and it looks like fun. The autograph session has a bunch of good names but is headlined by Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, and Trevor Hoffman. There will be Q & A sessions with Rick Peterson and Ken Macha, one with owner Mark Attanasio, GM Doug Melvin, and Asst. GM Gord Ash, and a third with former Brewers Jeff Cirillo, Greg Vaughn, and Gorman Thomas. Also, new comer Carlos Gomez, who will be roaming center this year for the Crew will be officially introduced to the press.

I wonder when Davis' press conference will be... No word yet but I wouldn't be surprised if it were Friday, the day in which he will be taking his physical.

That's it for now. More signings to come I'm sure. Brew Up.

Dougy D back in Miltown!

The Brewers have signed lefty Doug Davis to a one year deal with a mutual option for a second year. He will make $4.25 million this season with a $6.5 m option that has a $1 m buyout, in addition he can earn an extra million each year with incentives (they are called likely, probably starts and innings for the durable lefty). This is Davis' second stint with Milwaukee and will slot into the rotation behind young Yovani Gallardo, fellow newcomer Randy Wolf, and in front of two of the three of Jeff Suppan, Manny Parra, and Dave Bush.

Exciting news. I'll come back later with an article about how this will affect the team and so on. Brew Up.