Since school began taking over, I haven’t had the time to write about the Brewers… that doesn’t mean I haven’t been following them. Although posting will continue to be sporadic until I actually finish, I’m going to write as much as possible.

As everyone knows by now Doug Melvin traded J.J. Hardy for Carlos Gomez in a trade made to free up some money and solve the CF logjam. I defend the move, personally… even though I really like Mike Cameron it’s pretty clear keeping him is more of a sentimental move than a proper business move, and since baseball is a business, saving the money trumps keeping friends. The ~$7MM the Brewers save by bringing in Gomez will be spent on pitching, and the ~2 wins or so they lose should be more than made up for if they bring in a pitcher or two worth as much as they have left in their pockets. Let’s take a look at what next year’s payroll is going to look like realistically…

Conveniently Al’s Ramblings already took a look at the 2010 payroll. Here’s what he had to say:

Without buyouts and Hall, they are at $37M with guaranteed deals. Add in estimated payroll from guys not eligible for arby, you have Yo, Parra, Escobar, Stetter, DiFelice, McGehee, and I’ll add in Narveson…that’s seven guys at about $450K per, so that’s $3.15M, so a total of $40.15M for a dozen players.

Realistically, one catcher will be very cheap, be it a backup or a youngster. So will one utility IF. That’s 14 players for $41.05M. Weeks, about $3.75M in arby. Hart, about $4M in arby. Gomez, about $1.3M in arby (as a super 2). That’s 17 players for $50.1M. Coffey will likely get about $1.5M in arby…$51.6M for 18 players. You can probably pencil in Counsell or another backup IF for about $1.5M…19 for $53.1M. There’s two reserve OF spots still open, Gerut would probably get $2.5M in arby, but we do not know if he’ll remain. I’ll budget $3.5M for the pair of bench OF’s…21 for $56.6M. That leaves the catcher’s spot, a bullpen spot, and 2 SP’s remaining. Also, one of the commitments for next year is Dave Riske, who will probably not contribute ’til midseason, if at all. If the two bullpen openings are filled with guys like Carlos V, McClung, or the like, they’ll probably cost about $3-4M. We’ll use $3.5M for estimates, and that’s $60.1M. I keep thinking a veteran catcher of some sort will be brought in, at a cost of $2-3M. Again, splitting the difference, we’ll use $2.5M, the total is $62.6M.

How much is payroll? Well, Doug always says Mark never gives him a budget of $X. Last year’s Opening Day payroll was about $80M, and I’ve seen numbers used in the $85-90M range for last year…with additions such as Lopez, and including DL replacements. Assuming no increase, that would probably mean they “could” spend from $17-25M on these two SP’s that Doug is supposedly looking for.

Of course these are all estimates and ‘what-if’s regarding holes being filled, so obviously this $17-25MM number should be taken with a grain of salt. But let’s take a look at a couple of hypotheticals…

Trade for Edwin Jackson

Jackson is a young, cost-controlled pitcher still in arbitration. Despite all the trade talks and the talk of Detroit needing to grab some salary relief, it’s really unlikely he’d be “salary relief” since Detroit is a $120M+ payroll and Edwin still has two years of arbitration left. Likely the Brewers would have to take on one of their bad contracts or give up good prospects to pry him away… my guess is probably at least Mat Gamel.

Normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing but Edwin isn’t that great of a pitcher in the first place and giving up a highly touted prospect or taking on a bad contract in addition to him would be silly. It’d likely mean taking on Curtis Granderson’s ~$26MM remaining salary as well, and he’s looking more and more like a platoon player only. Now that the Brewers have Gomez, Granderson would be a significant downgrade. Besides, the Mariners are going for him too, which might cause an unnecessary bidding war.

Verdict: No thanks. We already have Suppan and Hall to worry about.

Sign a free agent, like Doug Davis or Jarrod Washburn.

Both Washburn and Davis are so-so pitchers who have been underrated by being in lower market areas (or in Washburn’s case, getting old). They’re not going to impress Brian Cashman or Theo Epstein, but they’re perfect for a mid-market team looking for a slightly above-average pitcher for a cheap price.

Davis himself might be a little overpriced, as people have noticed they might get in a bidding war with Seattle over him, and anything over a two-year deal is probably giving up too much for him. Seattle’s looking for pitching just as much as the Brewers are… and with their recent ‘defense-first’ mentality (trading for Franklin Gutierrez, resigning Jack Wilson), they can afford to sign an average pitcher, much like what Doug’s planning to do. Jack Z came from Milwaukee.

Washburn on the other hand had his value skyrocket in the middle of the year and then had it plummet after he was traded. He no longer was the beneficiary of a great D and pitcher’s park in Detroit, and he started regressing. Now his ceiling is a two-year deal worth about $10MM… just the kind of deal Doug should make. He’s getting old, which is turning some people off, but he’s a soft-tossing lefty, which means he should age well, and a fly ball pitcher with Gomes patrolling center is a recipe for success.

Verdict: Bring in JW.

With Mike Cameron‘s $10 million salary coming off the books at the beginning of next year, it’s unlikely the Brewers will offer him arbitration and he’ll get a two/three year deal with a team in need of a center fielder that has more money available to spend than the Brewers. This could be different had the Brewers not wrapped up nearly 1/4 of next year’s salary in Jeff Suppan and Bill Hall… but that’s the way it is, and the Brewers aren’t likely to have a clear center fielder for 2010 by this offseason.

So what are the options? Tom Haudricourt suggested a plan I liked in a chat with the fans last week:

I am the Brewers’ GM. This is what I do before Opening Day 2010: Trade Hart and Hardy and any prospect not named Gamel or Escobar for some starting pitching. There certainly isn’t any coming through the system right now. I’d re-sign Felipe Lopez to play second, move Rickie Weeks to center, move Mat Gamel to right and install Casey McGehee as my third baseman and Alcides Escobar as my shortstop. I’d sign Kendall for one more year and let him tutor Angel Salome in a backup role. I’d take that team to battle and see what happens.

This is a good idea in principle, but forcing Weeks to learn one of the most important defensive positions in a span of one offseason is more difficult to do than it sounds and I’m not ready to trot out a 2010 lineup with two-thirds of the outfield playing a position they’ve never played competitively before. Besides, throwing Mat Gamel in right field is basically giving up on all the work that’s been put into him at 3B, and since I heard his defensive stats aren’t that terrible after extensive work with defensive whiz Don Money I’m not ready to give up on his defense quite yet (as unnatural as it may look). He’s the third-base version of Rickie Weeks.

Instead who should be playing center is a combo plate of Jason Bourgeois and Jody Gerut. Gerut has been having a real down year but has gotten better lately and with any smidgen of consistent playing time down the stretch he could really stretch himself out into a full-or-half time player again.

Bourgeois is pretty good against left-handers and Gerut is pretty good against righties. Since they’re both competent defensively, I don’t see why an .800/.825 OPS and average-to-pretty-good D in center field will harm the Brewers anyways, and they’re going to be paying Gerut something around $1.5 million anyways through arbitration, it’ll be a little $2 million steal in center. It’ll be one of those moves Doug Melvin always seems to make.

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J.J. Hardy Update: .154/.214/.462/.676 in 13 ABs. Small sample size, but he’s been hitting balls really weakly all season long. I wouldn’t mind if he saves his best for last — between this and tampering with Hardy’s service time, Dougie Mustache could pull off a pretty sly move for a starting pitcher, since a cheap shortstop who’s still valuable despite being awful with the bat who’s under control for two more years it an incredibly valuable commodity, especially to an SS-hungry team like Boston.

He has to do it against AAA pitching though.