The Brewer Chronicles

The Brewers signed closer Francisco Rodriguez to a one year, $8 million deal and in effect, they avoided arbitration with the right handed pitcher.  He was very good when he came over to the Brewers as a setup man for John Axford but at this point, that’s a lot of money to be paying for a reliever at all.

It’s interesting because you wonder if the Brewers actually thought he’d take arbitration.  I’m sure they wanted the potential compensation but now they’re stuck paying a guy that might not have necessarily wanted to a big money deal.  Melvin said a trade isn’t on the table but it’ll be interesting to see where the Brewers are at in July and to see if they change their tune.

The Brewers signed All  Star third baseman Aramis Ramirez to a three year, $36 million deal.  After spending most of nine seasons with the Cubs, his old team will now see him quite a bit as he joins their division rivals.

Ramirez has 315 home runs in his career and he has a career .842 OPS.  Outside of an injury filled 2009, Ramirez has hit at least 25 home runs since 2002.  Injuries are a concern and it’s not unusual for Ramirez to spend a stint on the disabled list at once in a season.  He’ll be he guy who’s going to do his best to fill Prince Fielder’s shoes.  And he’s going to have an even tougher job with Ryan Braun potentially missing the first couple of months to the season.

This hurts.  The team is already losing Prince Fielder and now they’re probably losing NL MVP Ryan Braun for close to two months because he tested positive for a banned substance.  The whole thing is weird because a source said that there was never a test like this ever yet they’re not saying it was a steroid.

Basically Braun submitted a urine test that showed a high testosterone level and then a second test showed that it was artificial.  Braun asked for a second test and that one came up negative.

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