Entries from January 2009 ↓

Quite a few people have been murmuring about free agent pitcher Ben Sheets and reuniting with the Brewers after a tumultuous offseason that has seen contracts dwindle from astonishing and incredible to downright highway robbery. Free agents who are still in limbo like Sheets, Adam Dunn, Manny Ramirez, and Derek Lowe just aren’t going to come anywhere near what they thought they were going to be swimming in. Even if the economic situation weren’t so dire, and the Brewers had cap room, it would still be shooting themselves in the foot if they were to sign him again.
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Uh oh.

tl; dr version: Prime Brewers shortstop prospect Alcides Escobar’s wife wrote a post on Bleacher Report detailing how Escobar, since getting called up from the minors in the September callup binge, has been abrasive, silent, and big-headed, getting to the point where he skips out on his wife and baby child and supposedly got kicked off the team in Venezuela. He hasn’t made a minor league appearance in winter ball since the end of December, although he’s still on the lineup card.
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The Brewers are finally starting to do something!

The biggest news of the day comes from Tom Hardicourt. The Brewers have inked a 2-year, $18 million deal with Prince Fielder in order to buy out two years of his arbitration and keep him on the team.

The deal in itself doesn’t sound too bad, as it’s kind of a wash — Prince Fielder rated as about a 2.2 adjusted VORP for 2008. The average win in 2008 was valued at $4.5m. That cost in 2009 might go down due to the struggling economy — unless you’re the Yankees — so Prince’s value can be placed around $9m or so per year. That’s about what he’s worth. Not bad.
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The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time in 26 years mostly off of the pitching staff’s second-half excellency. It’s been well-documented how incredible CC Sabathia was, so we don’t hear that again. With the loss of Sabathia and (assumingly) Sheets to free agency, the rotation is going through a major change (and downgrade). Let’s take a look at the projected pitching staff and figure out just what we can expect from them in 2009.
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Sorry for no activity– daily life, prepping for school, running a bunch of errands, and generally being hectic contribute to my lack of posting. While there’s been no real posting lately, I can say that I’ve virtually finished my 2009 pitching preview and will post it first thing Monday morning. A few newsworthy things:
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With the Brewers not in the running to make any additional moves on the pitching side of the ball, it’s safe to say that I can continue working on my Brewers 2009 pitching preview. With an anticipated ample amount of time at my job, I should be able to work on it in my free time, so expect it to come out in a week or so. That’s also when school starts up again, so hopefully I can pull an Aaron Gleeman and continue this blog while studying and paying for my tuition.

Since the pitching preview will take up quite a bit of my time, and there still is no news coming out of Brewerland, I’ll keep this post short.
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The Brewers inked Trevor Hoffman to a one-year deal worth $6 million plus incentives today, making for the very first news out of Brewers land since before Christmas. It certainly is refreshing to see Doug Melvin doing something, because Brewerland has been eagerly anticipating the arrival of that one starter that will set the rotation for the year or the guys who are going to replace Salomon Torres or Eric Gagne in the bullpen.

Hoffman is distinguished among everyone across the baseball world, what with saving games for the last 15+ years for the Padres and doing an incredibly good job doing it. Including his injury-shortened year in 2003, Hoffman has only dipped below a 130ERA+ three times since 1994, and unlike the closer the Brewers brought in last year, has never been clouded with any steroids suspicion.
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The Brewers front continues to remain quiet with the holiday season as the most important news to come out of Brewers camp lately is that arbitration is beginning. For those not familiar with arbitration, here’s an article that explains everything. To sum it up really quickly:

Players who have been in the majors for in between 3 and 6 years who don’t agree with the contracts that their clubs have offered them can go through arbitration. If nobody can agree to a contract, the player can take arbitration where both his side and the team’s side present one-year contract offers to a three-person panel and present their sides on why their offer is more appropriate for the player. The panel then picks the best offer and that’s their contract. No in-betweens; it’s either one side or the other. (There’s much more to it, so if you want the whole of what arbitration is, read the link.)
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A recent Star Trek: The Next Generation binge brought me to this video:

While I’m still finishing tinkering this blog, I think it’s about time I start full-out blogging instead of posting here and there. Let’s use this post to outline what you can expect to see in this blog.
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