Brewers! Brewers! Keep Turnin’ Up the Heat!

Posted by Steve

I haven’t posted in awhile, but that’s not because I haven’t had the time.  Mainly it’s because there hasn’t been much of anything to talk about.  Save for the Yankees, teams really haven’t been very active so far this off-season.  The Brewers haven’t done much of anything either, except for scare me with with reports of a Mike Cameron-Melky Cabrera trade.

It’s also not because I’m growing bored with baseball.  My 20-minute argument at a New Year’s Eve Party with a stranger who claimed Mike Cameron sucks should erase any doubt of that.  Yeah, sometimes I need to hone it in a bit.

Anyway.  Normally we see more moves by now, but the economy seems to have slowed down the spending (again, save for the Yankees).  The best hitter and pitcher are off the market, but many impact players are still looking for a team.  Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, Trevor Hoffman and some Sheets guy who’s supposedly pretty good are all still available.  I’ve made my feelings for Adam Dunn known around these parts, so I won’t get into why I want Dunn again, but I’ll just say that his signing would make me quite pleased.

Of course I’m not expecting the Brewers to sign any of these players except maybe for Ben Sheets.  It just doesn’t seem like there are many suitors out there for him, and I’m starting to wonder if his agent erred by declining arbitration.  Teams with reported interest such as the Rangers and Astros now seem unable to have the money to sign him–from what I’ve read, the Astros are already shopping Carlos Lee.  There’s only four years left at $18.5 mil per season, so I’m sure teams will be lining up to take that cute little contract.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is it wouldn’t surprise me to see Ben Sheets and the Brewers, both seemingly inclined to move on without each other a couple months ago, work something out after each side has realized that there don’t appear to be better options available.

Whether it’s Ben Sheets or someone else, January is the time when I expect the Brewers to make their changes.  The holidays are over, and when some free agents realize people aren’t going to be meeting their demands, prices will come down.  We’ve already seen this in a few instances, such as the two top closers on the market–Francisco Rodriguez and Brian Fuentes ending up with less money and years than what they had hoped for.  I thought the Mets got a pretty fair deal for K-Rod, and I really liked the value for the Angels with Fuentes.  I expect to see more bargains like that throughout MLB this month.