New York Nine

Let me see how many hands for people who even saw the brewers making the playoffs last year, anyone? anyone? For sure it was almost as surprising as the rays to see the lowly brewers, a team who had not even sniffed the postseason since 1982 make the playoffs and subsequently be ousted in three quick games. But that was a very different team than the one preparing for the 2009 season, gone are their two aces CC Sabbathia and Ben Sheets, to free agency and injuries respectively. While still possessing a lot talented young players, much like it appeared last year this team is a ways off from truly being a force to be reckoned with.


As I mentioned the brewers rotation has two really glaring holes in it right now and its hard to see how they'll fill them. Gone are sabbathia and sheets, and instead they have Yovani Gallardo who was hurt most of the season and....i dont know, dave bush? manny parra, maybe? Indeed, between those three and jeff suppan and seth mcclung there isn't exactly a whole lot milaukee fans can be real happy about. no one in that list instills any sort of confidence and while gallardo is unquestionably very talented, he has proven to be quite injury prone thus far. With these collection of bums you'd think that Milwaukee would try to make a move for a quality arm, such as matt cain whom was tied to a trade rumor with prince fielder, but instead they did nothing to quell these fears. Instead, their answer is signing the closer-turned-starter braden looper, while his 4.16 ERA and 199 innings are not terrible and if he can repeat it he's at least useful, but as Jeff Suppan has already demonstrated, Dave Duncan's reclaimation projects very seldom continue their success upon leaving st louis. Regardless, even if he did, he's no CC Sabbathia.


The only addition worth even mentioning was the signing of the all-time saves leader trevor hoffman. a great closer in his day, hoffman at this stage in his career can hardly be considered an impact signing, posting a fairly putrid 3.66ERA as a closer in the best pitchers park in the league. While Hoffman at this point is certainly better than last year's alternative, the pitcher formerly known as eric gagne, this move hardly cements the still very unstable miluakee pen.


While the Brew Crew still have a grat deal of talent position player-wise, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are obviously two very talented young hitters and they are surrounded with good players in Corey Hart, Mike Cameron, JJ Hardy and a host of other guys it would be hard to argue that they're even half as good as they once were. I give their offseason a solid F for letting their two biggest assets go and basically doing jack shit to replace their production. Unfortunately for milaukee fans it seems as though they are going to be waiting for another long time before they taste the postseason again unless they do something about their current situation.