EXTENDED! Carlos Gomez

By the Brewers. Three years $28.3MM

After coming to the Milwaukee Brewers in the trade that sent J.J. Hardy to the Minnesota Twins, Carlos Gomez endured two seasons in a Brewer's uniform that saw his potential untapped.  He was identified by his flailing swing, low OBP and apparent insistence on swinging at everything in sight.  Then 2012 happened, and Gomez quietly put everything together.  Carlos Gomez was platooning in center field with Nyjer Morgan at the start of the 2012 season, but after Morgan's productivity fell off a cliff, the emerging Gomez was given essentially a full-time position and center.  Carlos Gomez awarded the Brewers for their faith by doubling many of his offense of numbers.  While he still has a way to go in terms of plate discipline, the still young Gomez finding his stroke at age 27 gives the Brewers a lot to be confident about.

There is obviously an implicit risk in extending a player after that player only puts up one year of notable production, but $28.3MM dollars could prove to be a bargain if the toolsy Carlos Gomez continues to improve.  The faith that he will in fact improve over the course of his deal is why the Brewers scrapped their initial one-year $4MM deal, opting instead to buy out three of his free agent years that will cover him over the ages that many players reach their peak.  B.J. Upton and Michael Bourn both signed enormous contracts this offseason that would have been unaffordable by Brewers' standards.  In terms of offense of productivity both of those players were about on par with what Gomez did in 2012.

Assuming Carlos Gomez can stay relatively healthy and avoid injuring himself on wild plays, this deal will be considered a very team-friendly.  It would help Gomez' next contract out substantially if you could learn how to get on base and utilize speed, but his power has become an attribute that can no longer be ignored.  If Carlos Gomez can maintain the arc of his productivity, it will not be a surprise whatsoever to see him as an All Star center fielder.  Using the logic that he can only improve over the course of his peak years, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 30/30 and Gold Glove season at least once over the course of this contract.

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Dark Horse: Carlos Gomez

Offseason Review: The Milwaukee Brewers

Going in to the 2012 season the Milwaukee Brewers were expected to viable contenders to repeat as NL Central Champions. There was a lot of concern as to how things would flow without Prince Fielder  holding down first base; but with Braun, Hart, Weeks, an emerging Lucroy and the addition of slugging third baseman Aramis Ramirez, offense wasn't too much of a worry. It was also easy to look at the Crew's bullpen as a major advantage given John Axford's lights out performance in 2011 and a returning Francisco Rodriguez. With the starting rotation the same as it was the year prior, it would basically take a major meltdown for the Brewers to not be serious contenders in their division. That's exactly what happened.

Rickie Weeks, an all-star in 2011, started the season in a slump that carried through almost the entire season. Randy Wolf performed with a degree of mediocrity that saw his release near season's end. The bullpen absolutely erupted, posting an MLB worst 4.66 ERA and 29 blown saves. Axford temporarily lost his closing role to Jim Henderson. K-Rod's heyday looked like a distant memory as well, proving to be absolutely hittable, posting career worst 4.38 ERA. The Crew did have a late season surge of relative competence but it proved too little too late, and they lost their Wild Card hopes to their nemesis Cardinals.

LHP Tom Gorzelanny with his pitching face

It would seem obvious given the Brewers absolutely blundering 2012 that a drastic overhaul would be in order. Things seemed headed that way, as the Brewers made the moves to non-tender or release a huge chunk of their bullpen. Kameron Loe, Manny Parra, Tim Dillard,  and Francisco Rodriguez are all relievers who are going to be wearing different uniforms next season. Taking their place will be former Washington Nationals LHP's Mike Gonzalez and Tom Gorzelanny, and sinkerballer Burke Badenhop who was acquired from the Rays for prospect Raul Mondesi Jr. All of these moves make a lot of sense for the Brewers. Gorzelanny is effectively Manny Parra with way higher pitchability, and the same could be same of Badenhop as a more effective Loe. Mike Gonzalez has closing experience and fits in as a set up man, back up for Axford if he breaks down again, and is generally a decent veteran arm.

The bullpen overhaul is essentially complete, so problem solved, right? Not even close. After 2012 saw the release of Randy Wolf, trading of Zack Greinke and free agency of Shaun Marcum, the Brewers starting rotation was stripped. The only definite starter left is Yovani Gallardo, followed by a slew of young talent competing for various slots. Also indefinite and by no means complete is the Brewers' bench. It could be said that this type of inaction is a reasonable way to cut down on spending that hasn't resulted in a championship, but it could also be said that the Brewers front office is behaving like they completely oblivious to the fact that they have a window of potential right now that isn't getting the support it needs to stay propped open. I abide by the latter notion.

Is the untested Michael Fiers up for the challenge
of a full year in the bigs? 

Ryan Braun is maybe the best all around outfielder in baseball right now. The 2011 MVP has several good years in front of him, but his contributions as an elite five-tool player have a logical deadline. Why Doug Melvin is wasting any of his years putting anything besides the best possible team together and building it around Braun is completely beyond me.  It wouldn't have broken the bank to sign a pitcher like Dan Haren just in case Mark Rogers does what he always does and gets injured. It wouldn't have sank the team to sign Sean Burnett or Koji Uehara in case the bullpen's ailments weren't a fluke last year. Now that Corey Hart is injured Mat Gamel is going to get another chance as a full time first basemen for the Crew, but he missed almost all of last year with a serious knee injury, you'd some depth there may be worth looking in to.

Just because Milwaukee's pen was the biggest problem Milwaukee faced last year doesn't mean that it's the only hole they should fill. I know that there are constraints that come with being a middle market team and that you can't acquire every major talent free agent that comes around, but that's not what it would take to make the Brewers viable contenders in 2013. The Brewers are probably going to be good, but extremely fragile. If one young arm gets injured or under-performs, what are they going to do to replace them? Given Milwaukee's pretty modest depth the only resource they could have tapped in to enhance their armory is the free agent market, and every signing that goes elsewhere makes that pool a little thinner.

GM Doug Melvin's Ron Swanson lookin' ass.

I think it's going to be the lack of depth that pushes the Brewers out of contention in 2013. Milwaukee is a really good team, but a really thin and inexperienced team with a lot that can go wrong. Their is a minute chance that absolutely everyone stays healthy, something I've never seen from any team ever, and they eek their way in to a wild card spot. There is a much much much much greater chance that the Brewers experiment with a rotation built almost entirely on inexperience and a limited bench proves futile, the Crew loses a whole bunch of games in frustrating fashion, and a rebuilding era is reigned in prematurely in Miller Park. I think the Brewers finish with a similar record as they did last year and miss the play offs again.

The Brewers' Outfield Situation

After the integrity of the case against Braun disintegrated, the Brewer's were gifted with the security of having last years NL MVP back on the team for a full season. Transitively they were given another immovable component to their outfield. Last year the Brewers outfield was primarily occupied by Hart in right, Braun in left and Gomez and Morgan platooning center. The signings of Norichika Aoki and Corey Patterson, and the emergence of Logan Schafer and Caleb Gindl as legitimate players give the Brewers a healthy surplus of competent outfield talent.

The Brewers Pitching Dilemma

The men in question

The Brewers are on the cusp of having to make some extremely expensive decisions. Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke are both free agents next season, and could fetch a pretty decent amount of money. Both pitchers have stated a desire to stay with the Crew and are waiting to talk extension. Zack Greinke, acting as his own manager since firing SFX, the firm representing him last Winter, is rumored to have already had talks with Doug Melvin. Nothing obvious has resulted so far from either player, as the decision to invest in either of these guys is a heavily nuanced situation.

Kamikaze

In three days, a rematch between the New York Giants and New England Patriots of Homeric proportions will be staged in Indianapolis. Super Bowl Sunday, and no matter who wins, tales will be forged in the mouths of the fans of both teams that will be told until they die. The Super Bowl, an ultimately arbitrary happening, contends with and probably more often blights major disasters and war in overall new coverage. And I couldn't care less.

That's not accurate, I care. I care about the visceral experiences of snack eating, excessive drinking and yelling that elite athletes in their prime attempting feats on the biggest possible stage that would kill me if ever attempted by me... suck. I care about it because its fun, but the investment is non-existent.  Today a friend of mine asked who I wanted to win, and I came up short by half-assedly giving some forgettable bullshit about rooting for underdogs. Frankly, the pedantic grooming attributed to Super Bowl marketing irritates the shit out of me, and only serves to water itself down.

This a sports blog, and only kind of. I am a grumpy, impatient baseball fan who has thus far only written objective analysis in an attempt to seem professional. That got exhausting so now I'm going to write flailing opinion pieces ranting about what I think is so goddamn wrong all the time or how awesome something is. I'm not going to be too intellectual about it, I'm not going to go to deep. I figured I'd start by undermining any notion of integrity someone may have in me as a writer about sports by talking about how dumb The Super Bowl is. 

Take note: this is a clumsily written intro about what I'm going to attempt to do with this blog. Usually I won't start writing an hour before I have to go to work, but inspiration sparked me and I decided to not take it for granted. Spring training is just around the corner. I can't wait.