This winter the Brewers have been working to sign Rickie Weeks to a multiyear extension. There hasn't been much news on that front in the last week, but here are some other noteworthy developments out of Milwaukee..
- The Brewers and pitcher Shaun Marcum remain deadlocked as they are less than 24 hours away from a scheduled arbitration meeting, writes MLB.com's Adam McCalvy. As seen on MLBTR's Arb Tracker, Marcum is seeking $5MM while the Brewers have offered $3MM. Brewers senior director of business operations Teddy Werner remains hopeful that the two sides can work out a deal, citing previous cases that the club has settled in the eleventh hour. As McCalvy pointed out on Sunday, Francisco Liriano's arb case could impact Marcum's as both pitchers submitted figures of $5MM. Liriano wound up settling with the Twins for $4.3MM.
- The club has not inquired about free agent shortstop Orlando Cabrera, GM Doug Melvin told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (via Twitter). Some have speculated, including SI's Jon Heyman, that Milwaukee was a possible landing spot for the veteran. This likely means that the club will take care of the shortstop position internally, turning the keys over to Yuniesky Betancourt.
You can’t spell Yuniesky without M-V-P!
I don’t even.
Wow, I never thought I’d ever say that Orlando Cabrera is a significant upgrade over anyone, but he definitely is over Betancourt. Yikes Brew Crew, yikes…
“This likely means that the club will take care of the shortstop position internally, turning the keys over to Yuniesky Betancourt.”
I’m not a Brewers fan. I still cringed.
I cringed from the second I saw Betancourt coming over with Greinke. You knew Melvin would spew crap like RBIs as to why Betancourt was good and he’s still spewing that crap.
Milwaukee is a football town – and they don’t even have a college team – RBIs is perfect cover for the Brewers fans. It also helps that most of them are drunk before they head into the stadium.
you say “most of them are drunk before they head into the stadium” like its a bad thing…
Yuniesky…. what a shame. So promising at a young age and he just rested on his laurels instead of trying to improve. How quickly he became one of the worst defensive shortstops in the game….. Good luck with that Brewers.
The negative reaction to Betancourt especially among those that worship at the altar of sabermetrics is amazing. Make no mistake about it, sabermetrics is a religion to it’s true believers (can’t wait to see the reaction I get to that). It’s a complete overreaction in my opinion.
Betancourt drove in 78 runs last year. They didn’t drive themselves in. He did it with his bat. The “enlightened” among us will undoubtedly respond that RBI totals are insignificant, and the only true measure of greatness is OBP.
Spare me. Is Betancourt any good? He’s below average with the glove, but he’s on a team with a pitching staff that will strike out a ton of hitters and doesn’t have many ground ball pitchers. He makes good contact with the bat, can get runners home from 3rd with less than 2 outs, and has a little pop for a SS. That’s a positive. He rarely walks, can’t run, and grounds into a few too many DP. Those are negatives. Though for a hitter batting lower in the NL, taking walks has lesser value.
As poor as OC has become with the bat I’m still shocked he hasn’t been signed yet. He is better defensively than most SS in the game and his offense can probably suffice at that position. He had a UZR around 3 last year and except for 2009 has been above 10 for a few seasons of late. What the heck is he asking for?