We talk a lot about the current and future St. Louis Cardinals as it relates to the NL Central and the Cubs’ chance of competing in 2023, but it’s not like the Milwaukee Brewers should be mentally relegated to the Reds-Pirates grouping just because they had a bad second half in 2022.
About that. From the moment the Brewers tried to have their cake and eat it, too, by trading closer Josh Hader, the ship freaking saaaaaank. The Brewers took a healthy division lead and turned it into a blowout division win for the Cardinals, and now they’ll head into 2023 without long-time, very-successful president David Stearns at the helm. It could be a very transitional time, especially as Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes get more expensive, as Lorenzo Cain is now long gone, and as Christian Yelich gets paid an enormous amount to be surprisingly average.
I wouldn’t expect the Brewers to be the spendiest team out there in free agency this offseason, though they have historically pulled off some interesting trades.
In a Q&A today, however, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio suggested it might be a busy offseason for his club … but with a couple caveats:
A decent bit to unpack there, including Attanasio’s confirmation that Stearns really is stepping back and then heading out after his final contract year in 2023 (again, it’s clear to me that they just want some other org to offer up a trade).
So, the mention of being “active” was in response to a question about minor leaguers making the team. It almost seems like Attanasio was suggesting the Brewers could trade AWAY big league pieces and create openings, rather than saying the Brewers were going to be aggressive in free agency or anything like that.
Then you have the very direct question about spending, and a VERY indirect answer. You can listen to Attanasio’s response for yourself, but to me, it sounds like an owner who is not expecting to open things up wide this offseason. In fact, I don’t even hear his response as hiding the ball – it just kinda sounds like they don’t expect to spend a whole lot of money. Your mileage may vary.
Ultimately, the Brewers will go as far in 2023 as their stud pitching takes them, as well as getting more surprising breakouts from savvy pickups like they did with Willy Adames and Luis Urias, for example.