The Brewer Chronicles

The Brewers farm system was gutted heading into the 2011 season but it looks like some help is on the way.  The Brewers are going to be able to take advantage of the final season of the old compensation rules and they’re set to pick up a few draft picks because of their recent decisions.  They offered Prince Fielder and Francisco Rodriguez arbitration and it’s expected that both will turn them down to test the market.  That means when the two sign elsewhere, the Brewers will get four rock solid draft picks because both are Type A free agents.  You wonder how losing these two guys is going to effect Brewers tickets sales.

The odd man out is Yuniesky Betancourt, who wasn’t offered arbitration.  Takashi Saito was also a Type A free agent but because of the way his contract was set up, the Brewers weren’t allowed to offer him arbitration.

The Brewers have quite a few big name free agents.  The two guys they trade for last year, Zach Greinke and Shaun Marcum, will be free agents.  Randy Wolf could be in that group but the team has yet to decided on his $10 million option.  If things get crazy, you could see a radically different rotation in 2012.

Ryan Braun walked away with the NL MVP award.  He was named on all 32 ballots and he picked up 20 first place and ten second place votes.  I really thought Matt Kemp was going to win it but Kemp finished second.  He picked up ten first place votes, sixteen second place votes and six third place votes.

Prince Fielder had a good showing and he came in third but he was all over the board.  He picked up a first place vote but he also picked up a tenth place vote.  He finished just ahead of Justin Upton who was also all over the place.

John Axford was the only other Brewer to pick up votes.  He received one eighth place and two ninth place votes.  Of course Fielder will be gone but hopefully Braun can continue his hitting to help ease the pain.

Here’s the top ten Brewers prospect as listed by Baseball America.

1)  Wily Peralta  RHP
2)  Taylor Jungmann  RHP
3)  Jed Bradley  LHP
4)  Tyler Thornburg  RHP
5)  Scooter Gennett  2b
6)  Logan Schafer  OF
7)  Cody Scarpetta  RHP
8)  Taylor Green  3b/2b
9)  Jorge Lopez  RHP
10)  Jimmy Nelson  RHP