When it comes to big spenders in free agency in the National League, we often look the usual suspects like the Dodgers, Cubs, Giants, Cardinals and Nationals. This offseason, we are likely to see a new entrant in the form of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Sure, Milwaukee is one of baseball's smallest markets, but the Brewers routinely do very well in attendance (they were 10th in MLB last season) and have ownership willing to pay for talent. What's more, right now the Brewers have very few payroll obligations moving forward.
For next season, the Brewers are only committed to $32.1 million plus arbitration and pre-arbitration players. The latter two cases only likely pushes them to the $65 million range. That would've been good for 29th in baseball last season.
For 2019, as things stand, the Brewers are only committed to $31.5 million. It drops to $18.5 million in 2020 and just $4 million in 2021. Obviously, they have lots of in-house talent that will get arbitration raises and might need to be signed to extensions, but superficially speaking, the Brewers are free to shell out some big dollars in free agency should they choose, especially if they want to back-load deals.
Enter the rumor mill ...
Source: #Brewers showing interest in free agent Jake Arrieta. With Jimmy Nelson expected to miss portion of 2018 after shoulder surgery, team is looking for top-of-the-rotation upgrades. @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 20, 2017
Jake Arrieta won the 2015 Cy Young award and is coming off a season in which he was 14-10 with a 3.53 ERA. He's battled with command issues the past two seasons, but he was really hot until a hamstring injury in September. In his 11 starts before that outing in Pittsburgh where he was hurt, he was 7-2 with a 1.69 ERA. He then recovered in time to work two starts in the playoffs, where he allowed just one earned run in 10 2/3 innings -- though he did walk 10.
Arrieta is 31, but he doesn't have a ton of wear on his arm, with only four 150-plus inning seasons under his belt.
Still, I'd focus less on Arrieta specifically here and instead on the Brewers being in on big names in free agency. If they are interested in Arrieta, you can bet they're looking at other arms like Lance Lynn and Alex Cobb as well. The interest in Arrieta matters, but the bigger picture here is to keep an eye on the Brewers this offseason. They turned things around last year, probably a season or two early, and now figure to be players in the NL Central.
