Milwaukee Brewers 2005 Season Preview

by David Marasco

In 1981 Jimmy Carter left the White House and returned to Georgia. During his time in Washington he had placed his finances in a blind trust, a common practice to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. When he returned to his family's peanut farm he sadly discovered that he was over a million dollars in debt. When Bud Selig became Commissioner of baseball, he put his principle asset into a trust - surely there was no conflict of interest with his daughter owning and running his old team the Milwaukee Brewers, right? Well, Bud hasn't stepped down yet, but he is much richer, over this past off-season the Brewers sold for $220M. Jimmy Carter has spent a good part of his post-Presidency working with Habitat for Humanity, where people build houses for low-income families. Meanwhile, Bud Selig got the taxpayers of Wisconsin to build him a $425M house for his team. This gave him record crowds at jacked-up ticket prices, but when it came to plowing money back into the team, the Seligs claimed that like the recipients of the Habitat for Humanity homes, they too were low-income. Jimmy Carter, for all his lusting in his heart, enjoys a strong reputation for decency and honesty. If he said that he did not have sexual relations with the intern and that there were WMD in Iraq, people would give him the benefit of the doubt. Bud Selig has testified to Congress on several occasions that the sky was falling on baseball, and that Oakland was just an aberration. Sadly, even though he is now longer an owner (in trust or not), Bud is still running the show for baseball.

There is one last point to make. When Carter did leave office Ronald Reagan was able to instill a new sense of optimism. "Morning in America" replaced the impotence of the Iran Hostage situation with a saber-rattling foreign policy, and the malaise of the late 1970s was attacked with Voodoo Economics. Brewers fans now get to see ownership that is willing to play a bit with the bottom line in order to get a good product on the field - Voodoo Economics will help them in the form of the Veeck rule, which allow new owners to depreciate the cost of purchase at 10% a year for the first five years - in other words the new owners will be able to create $22M worth of "paper losses" to write off on their taxes. This should help give the Brewers a leg up, if the new owners decide (unlike the Selig clan) to actually reinvest in the team itself.

It's more than just new ownership that's reawakening interest in the Milwaukee franchise, it's a batch of fresh young players. The big off-season move was the trade that sent the flash-in-the-pan Scott Podsednik to the White Sox for Carlos Lee. After posting a 314/379/443 2003, Podsednik suffered from some serious regression to the mean, 244/313/364. True, he did lead the league in steals and had a very nice 84% conversion rate, but a 313 OBP means that his team wasn't getting enough runs for his outs. From the point of view of the White Sox, the Lee deal was a salary dump. Lee had made $6.5M in 2004, and was one of those players with maddening untapped potential. The tradionalist will see Lee as a .300/30/100 type player, a propeller-head sees a guy who may or may not figure out that walks are good.

A statnerd would also find joy in the fact that Lee's "Most Similar Batter" is none other than Milwaukee's current left fielder, Geoff Jenkins (Jenkins will move to right to accommodate Lee). Jenkins is another case of should-have-been. A bright early career path has been marred by injury, and for a little shy of $9M he was able to deliver a 264/325/473 in 2004. Eeep. That's not cutting it for a corner outfielder. Brady Clark in penciled in for the centerfield job, but he's just a placeholder. The Brewers are hoping that young Dave Kryzel will be able to take his slot.

Kryzel is one of a number of promising Brewers minor leaguers. Rickie Weeks is being groomed to play second, J.J. Hardy short, and Prince Fielder looms on the horizon (Tony Gwynn Jr. is also on a fast track). A lot of ink could be spilled on the potential of these players. They all have very high ceilings, but one quick look at the corner outfielders shows how quickly potential can turn into a mediocre return on investment. For the mean time Junior Spivey will man second and Lyle Overbay will nail down first (did anybody win in the Sexson trade?). The Brewers don't have too much safety net if Hardy doesn't play to expectations.

For third and catcher the Brewer have Russell Branyan and Damian Miller. Branyan will remind the faithful of the glory days of Rob Deer, and Miller, well, he's a 35-year-old catcher. If the Brewers are lucky he'll be able to impart some wisdom to the pitchers before his body falls apart.

Speaking of pitchers, former Olympian Ben Sheets posted a 12-14 record last season. Don't blame him, he got a grand total of 19 runs in support in those 14 losses. Look more closely and you'll see the league's third best ERA and a sick 3.7-1 strikeout to walk ratio. Note to ownership - you might want to throw money in this direction and lock the kid up for a while. Doug Davis was able to post a slightly better record, 12-12, while posting a 3.39 ERA. Victor Santos somehow managed an 11-12 season with an ERA right around five. Sheets and Davis form a solid core, after that the story will be like the lineup - lots of players either holding a position for a prospect, or the prospects themselves trying to show what they can do.

Danny Kolb and his 39 saves departed for Atlanta. This has left the bullpen reaching for a closer, but to tell the truth, not too many people care. Having Brooks Kieschnick do his thing is fun to watch, and by the time the Brewers really need a stopper, one will be found.

Reagan took office in 1981, in 1982 the Brewers made it to the playoffs for the last time in franchise history. Perhaps the new optimism in Beertown will translate again into post-season play for the Brew Crew? Probably not. But the future looks much brighter in Milwaukee.