Along with defense in general, the left side of the Brewers' infield was clearly their weak point. Yuniesky Betancourt has been a replacement level player for the past four years, and the Brewers upgraded slightly with the Alex Gonzalez acquisition. Gonzalez and Betancourt are similar offensively, but Gonzalez handles the glove much better. After two suburb years, Casey McGehee was a disaster in 2011. Coming into last season, McGehee had a reputation for hitting lefties. In 2011 though, McGehee hit just .169/.228/.185 with no home runs off southpaws. The Brewers decided to upgrade this spot by signing the best third baseman available, Aramis Ramirez. Ramirez is aging, and his defense isn't any better than McGehee. He has been a strong offensive player throughout his career, but much of it might have been a result of Wrigley Field. He's a career .308/.373/.552 hitter at Wrigley, as opposed to .284/.342/.500 for his career.
By acquiring Ramirez though, the Brewers were able to flip Casey McGehee for bullpen help in the form of Jose Veras. Veras is an average option for the bullpen, and he's under team control until 2014. The Breweres also retained the services of Francisco Rodriguez via Rodriguez accepting arbitration. The Brewers offered K-Rod arbitration hoping he'd turn it down, and look for a multiyear deal as a closer. The closer market was flush though, and Rodriguez deemed to better to pitch for Milwaukee for another year and test the market next offseason. If Rodriguez had turned down arbitration, and signed somewhere else, the Brewers would be in line to get draft choices in return for his departure.
The Rodriguez situation was really the catalyst for the Brewer's offseason so far. The Brewers had hopes of bringing back Prince Fielder, and would have to pinch every penny in order to do it. K-Rod is going to earn at least $12 million in arbitration though, which may have forced the Brewers into a scenario where they deemed it better to fill out their roster with multiple players, instead of trying to commit all of their resources to Prince Fielder. It was probably for the best though, as I don't believe Prince was headed back to Milwaukee, anyways.
Along with Fielder, it appears that the Brewers will be without Ryan Braun, at least to begin the season. Braun allegedly failed a test for PED's during the 2011 season, and is facing a 50 game suspension. He's appealing the ruling, but these things don't exactly have a history of being overturned. There has been a lot written about the Braun situation already, so I'm not going to take a lot of time with this. But a few points, about going all Reggie-Bush-Heisman on Braun's MVP award; basically, he should keep it. Barry Bonds won four MVP awards in the 2000's, and still has all of them. Most of what I've read sounds like people who want the award rescinded, want to give it to Kemp. I thought Kemp should have won the award originally, but I don't think that he should have it now. What if we get to spring training then Kemp tests positive, too? What if Kemp tests positive in 2015? It's good to see that the tests are apparently working, but the public needs to stop being so green about the issue. Players in baseball still do it PED's, and I can't imagine what would happen if the NFL, where size and strength are far more important, did testing. But hey, maybe Braun can retire for part of the offseason, just to see if he can get his punishment cut in half upon reinstatement.
For the Brewers though, the Braun situation came at the worst possible time. This team is in "win now" mode, and doesn't appear to have that long of a window. Their farm system is thin, and they can't afford to lose their best player. They should still have some money left over from their Prince fund, and I wouldn't be surprised if they went after Carlos Pena and a fringe-regular outfielder to sit in for Braun. Pena would be great for them because he'd fill a need and is left handed. Prince Fielder was this team's only left handed threat in the lineup. Mat Gamel could be an option, but hasn't showed much at the major league level so far. He'll be 26 next season, and seems to be entering "Quad-A" status. The good new for the Brewers though is that the National League Central isn't too difficult of a division. I'm not expecting anything from the Astros or Cubs in 2012, while I think the Reds and Pirates should be within five games or so of .500. The Cardinals are the only team I think that the Brewers will have to compete with in the division. Adding Adam Wainwright should negate much of the Pujols lose, but won't make up for in entirely. Wainwright may also now be as effective as before if his control doesn't return immediately. With the loss of Prince and a third of Braun's season though, the Cardinals have to still be the favorite in the division.
Other Notes:
Sticking in the N.L Central, the Cardinals and Rafael Furcal agreed to a two year deal. I thought that the Cardinals would perhaps go after Jimmy Rollins with some of the money that they had allocated for Pujols, but decided two go with the shorter cheaper deal with Furcal. Furcal has only played 100 games once in the past four seasons, and will need to stay healthy to live up to his end of the deal.
The Twins added Josh Willingham to their roster via a three year deal for $21 million. Willingham's similar to Michael Cuddyer, but with more power and less positional diversity. He should bring some needed right handed power to the Twins' lineup, and by not re-upping with Cuddyer, the Twins have put themselves in line to get compensational draft picks with Cuddyer signs elsewhere.
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