Veteran right-handed starting pitcher Javier Vazquez has indicated he has some interest in pitching again in 2013 after sitting out, semi-retired, during 2012.  The Washington Nationals reportedly have interest, but only on a minor-league deal.  The Boston Red Sox also may have some interest.  Vasquez wants to play for a contender, and in the past has indicated he prefers to pitch near the East Coast, so that the Puerto Rico native would be closer to home.  Vazquez will throw for teams Friday in Puerto Rico. 

If he would be willing to come to Milwaukee (which, admittedly, is in the north-central United States) and if the contract and salary hurdles could be cleared (no chance in hell?), I think he would be an excellent addition to the Brewers pitching staff for a number of reasons.  Let me preface this by saying I do not believe, really in any way, that Vazquez will end up with the Brewers.  I merely think he’d be a good fit. 

1. Vazquez has been around the block and knows how to pitch.  The 36-year-old is said to be in great shape, and while you never can tell with clichéd reports, I would lean toward thinking Vazquez could return rather easily to MLB if he wanted.  I think he could’ve played last year and could return in ’13 and be effective. 
2. For the younger pitchers on the Brewers’ roster (including Gallardo and Estrada), Vazquez would be a solid mentor and role model because he’s had a good career and knows what he’s doing.
3. While Vazquez doesn’t have much playoff experience (15 IP covering three series, from the years 2004 and 2008), he would help the Brewers get through the regular season more smoothly towards their goal of a playoff berth.  Right now, Vazquez is likely a #2 on the Brewers’ staff.
4. If the pitching-rich Nationals indeed are only willing to give him a minor-league deal, perhaps Vazquez would fall into Milwaukee’s budget range on a major-league deal with incentives.  There are likely additional teams on the hunt for Vazquez, though. 

Again, I don’t honestly think the Brewers have any shot at Javier Vazquez.  He’s a pitcher I’ve always been impressed with and I’ve wanted to see him play for the Crew for a while.  The Nationals, obviously, are better suited to satisfy Vazquez with their geographic location and the fact that they are likely repeat NL East-division winners.  I guess Vazquez is another pipe dream for this Brewers fan. 

(Photo Credit: BorchertField.com)

The Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club does an outstanding job of incorporating tributes to Milwaukee’s baseball past in special-occasion field uniforms and celebrations, such as throwbacks to honor the Milwaukee Bears, Seattle Pilots, and Milwaukee Braves as well as various eras of the major-league Milwaukee Brewers.  The Brewers organization also does field-uniform tributes to ethnic communities and heritage better and more often than just about any MLB team.  But in a special 2013 throwback, they’ve really outdone themselves.  According to Milwaukee baseball historian Chance Michaels over at BorchertField.com, he has worked with the Brewers organization to produce a throwback of the uniforms worn by the pennant-winning 1913 American Association Brewers, to be worn on Corey Hart’s bobblehead day on Sunday, May 5, versus St. Louis. 

(Photo Credit: BorchertField.com)

If you don’t know much about the American Association Brewers, they played for 50 years in Milwaukee and featured Owgust, the Barrel Man, as their mascot, paving the way for the modern Brewers.  I would sincerely encourage you to read more about the AA Brewers, because their history is not only very cool but also truly informative about Milwaukee’s baseball story overall.  Especially in the wintertime when there isn’t much Brewers news, this kind of stuff is a gold mine.  Chance Michaels does a phenomenal job finding information, artifacts and pictures from the days of the AA Brewers and Borchert Field.  I recently visited the historical marker for Borchert in Milwaukee, which is very easy to find and worth the trip if you’re in the area, especially to get a sense of the neighborhood and residential aspects of the park.  The marker is a few blocks east of the actual ballpark site because I-43 now sits where the ballpark did.  I grew up only a few miles from where Borchert Field once stood and until a couple years ago I had no idea about its history and preeminent standing in Milwaukee’s baseball tradition for over 60 years.  The rise of Milwaukee County Stadium and eventually the move of a new major-league team to Brew City led to the demise of Borchert, but it remains extremely significant to Milwaukee’s baseball past and sports past in general, having been host to the first Green Bay Packers game in Milwaukee, in 1933.  I think it’s awesome that the Brewers are going out of their way to pay tribute to the AA Brewers and to be authentic in their re-creation of the 1913 Brewers uniforms.  Thanks to Chance Michaels and his work on preserving the narrative of Borchert Field, the spirit of the powerhouse 1913 Brewers lives on.            

(Photo: Milwaukee History magazine)

(Photo: Nick Michalski)

(Photo: Pool-Reuters)

Milwaukee Brewers leftfielder Ryan Braun was the classic case of the person that men wanted to be like and women wanted to be with. Children all over the state of Wisconsin had posters on the walls of this man because he was the definition of the classic role model. He was clean-cut, handsome, intelligent, great with the media and seemed like the perfect All-American man straight from California, until December 10, 2011. On that date, the people at ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported that Braun tested positive for an elevated level of testosterone, a level said by a source to the Daily News to be “insanely high, the highest ever for anyone who has ever taken the test and twice the level of the highest test ever taken”. 

That moment in time was the “Say it ain’t so, Joe” moment of my baseball life because Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were my first taste of watching real superstars play in Milwaukee at Miller Park. Before then I had to deal with the bargain-basement stars such as Richie Sexson, Jeromy Burnitz and Ben Sheets, when he was healthy. Braun was also one of the key players in that “post-steroid generation”, so who would’ve thought he would get caught with what his generation was trying to get away from?

Braun of course vehemently denied the allegations and reports of use of PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) but there were still a good portion of baseball nation basically calling for his head and for his new shiny MVP award simply because people are still trying to erase the words “performance-enhancing drugs” from their minds. Nearly every single baseball player outside of Wisconsin had Braun out for slaughter while Brewers fans everywhere were holding out hope that the decision would be appealed. An appeal seemed impossible to most but Wisconsin sports fans everywhere were used to believing in the impossible.

The impossible did happen at the start of the year in January as he won the appeal thanks to what the New York Times considered a “technicality”. The sample was apparently not shipped for testing as soon as is required by the drug policy but was actually held in the refrigerator of sample collector Dino Laurenzi. The folks at Major League Baseball were of course livid with the decision because they believed that arbitrator Shyam Das made some sort of mistake to let Braun off and even threatened to sue. Fortunately, that never materialized so Ryan could start out the 2012 season like every single other MLB player. 

Ryan Braun’s 2012 season started out with more of a whimper than a bang; in spring training he had a batting average below the Mendoza Line at .216 which immediately made that massive target on his back even bigger in the eyes of the people who said he got lucky with the ruling. 

Ryan Braun was really nothing special at the start of the season but things changed on April 30 at Petco Park in San Diego. It all started with a simple crack of the bat against Padres prospect Joe Wieland that landed in the right field bleachers to tie the game up at 1-1 in the 4th. Braun was feeling it that day because he nailed another shot against Wieland in the next inning to give Milwaukee a 5-2 lead. That wasn’t the end of Braun’s rampage as he hit his 3rd long shot of the game against reliever Ernesto Frieri and followed that up with a triple to end his night and month of April. That simple game against a below-average Padres team lifted Braun’s batting average from .262 to a superb .294.

From May until the end of the season, Braun went on to have what some might consider a career season with a career-high 41 home runs, 112 RBI, 30 stolen bases and 6.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement). While he was on the road to grabbing those great numbers, Braun had to deal with some less-than-loving fans in places like Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles or Busch Stadium in St. Louis, which you can understand because Braun beat out Kemp for the 2011 MVP and St. Louis fans despise the Brewers (feeling is mutual). 

What really confused me is when the fans at Turner Field in Atlanta sent boos at Braun in mid-April because before that I always thought that the Braves and the Brewers had this mutual connection as fans simply because they’re kind of related in this strange MLB world, but fans still decided to turn on him. 

So despite the hate both on and off the field, Braun still had a great 2012 when you consider that he basically was a man against the world at times throughout the year. His “cookie-cutter” image may be dead in the water but in my eyes he earned more of my respect for going out there and having a great season with all the negative attention on him. Braun also led a Brewers team that just lost Fielder to free agency and had a below-average bullpen to an above-.500 record. He may not be a perfect superstar but he’s our superstar and quite frankly I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

(Mike Fiers should likely get a crack at starting.)

The Milwaukee Brewers have done an OK job bringing on reinforcements for their faulty bullpen.  Things were looking pretty bleak before GM Melvin (and by extension, ownership) signed lefty relievers Tom Gorzelanny and Mike Gonzalez.  Personally, I’m feeling better about the pen now, for sure.  It’s kinda like those Snickers commercials with Joe Pesci; things just aren’t the same when you’re hungry for relief pitching.  That said, the team needs a truckload of candy bars when it comes to starting pitching.  One hears the common refrain that Yovani Gallardo is incapable of serving as a true ace because he’s sloppy and throws too many pitches.  Even if Yo is a bona fide #1, who comes after him and in what order for 2013?  Remember when we had Zack Greinke and a healthy Shaun Marcum as our #2 and #3?  Now it’s like a black hole behind Yo.  Well things are not exactly that desperate, but the starting rotation’s status makes a lot of fans nervous.  In the major leagues, a team is not likely to get away with hope and duct tape for an entire 162-game regular season, let alone any playoff games. 

The picture of pitching on the 2013 Brewers is so muddled and confused overall this offseason that it appears many people think Mike Fiers should be a reliever.  I don’t know about that…Fiers seems to be one of the team’s best starters right now, as well as one of its most-experienced (yikes).  I didn’t want to see Marco Estrada in the rotation at all last year, even when he was fairly solid, because I like him in the bullpen a lot.  Now Estrada is one of the most valuable potential starters on the roster.  How things have changed.  Until Chris Narveson is deemed officially healthy and locked into a spot in the rotation, he cannot be counted on to give the team innings next year.  Then you have a mixed bag of guys like Mark Rogers, Wily Peralta, Tyler Thornburg, etc. 

In the new order of things that Mark Attanasio and Melvin have put down this winter, it makes sense to scale back expectations drastically.  I agree with Nick Prill that the Brewers aren’t going to land Kyle Lohse due to cost and duration of contract.  But I would argue that the Brewers do need Kyle Lohse or someone, at least, to anchor a rotation that is precariously thin on both proven innings and reliable performance.  The list of available starters in free agency is growing ever more spotty and shady; the Brewers need to spend a little money and try to woo someone for a couple years on a reasonable salary.  It sounds as if guys on the current top tier want too much money or too many years for the Brewers to match (Lohse, Joe Saunders, even Brett Myers).  But what about trying to snag someone really cheap…what about old nemesis Jeff Karstens or Jair Jurrjens?  What about Aaron Cook or even Carlos Zambrano on a minor-league deal?  I know the slippery slope of sanity beckons when one is starving for starting pitching.  Until that fix is acquired, however, I’m going to feel increasingly shouty and petulant, much like Joe Pesci without a filling snack.                   

According to reports, the Milwaukee Brewers are closing in on a deal for LHP Mike Gonzalez with a physical to take place after January 1.  Gonzalez, 34, was one of the pitchers GM Doug Melvin reportedly had on his radar when discussing the relief market last week.  Like the recently signed Tom Gorzelanny, Gonzalez has spent time with the Pittsburgh Pirates among other teams but most recently pitched for the Washington Nationals.  Whether he’s used as a middle reliever, a setup man or a LOOGY is unclear, but a veteran guy like Gonzalez will hopefully help fortify a bullpen makeover that includes several unproven guys on minor-league deals along with Gorzelanny and the acquisition of Burke Badenhop via trade.  As Tom Haudricourt points out over at the JS, Gonzalez has 56 saves; he could provide some additional protection against a potential meltdown at closer.  Gonzalez also has postseason experience, albeit only about five innings pitched, with Texas and Washington over the last two seasons.  In 2012, left-handed batters hit only .179 against Gonzalez while righties hit .279; Gonzalez seems to have some trouble with walks (4.1 BB/9 over a 10-year career) but he limits the long ball and strikes out a lot of batters (10.3 K/9 over his career).  If Gonzalez can put up numbers close to his career averages, he will no doubt be a nice addition to what was a train-wreck bullpen for the Brewers in 2012.  Reportedly signed for only one year at around $2.25MM plus possible incentives, this looks like an affordable and reliable bullpen arm to help the Crew get through the back end of games.