Brewers

It's time for the start of the regular season of baseball. That really long affair that concludes with a world series. I still think that baseball needs more teams in the playoffs. 8 teams out of 30 is really low. Even the NBA uses 16 teams out of 30. Anyway.

The brewers look good this year. They didn't make any moves in free agency to change the lineup, but they did pick up 3 pitchers and a backup infielder. Braden Looper takes the place of Sheets. In a way. Yovani Gallardo seems like our new CC Sabatia since we didn't pick up another Starting pitcher. Jorge Julio comes in to replace the departed Brian Shouse. I don't know much about Julio but I would venture a guess that we will know him very soon. We lost Erik Gagne (twice) and now we have all time saves leader Trevor Hoffman. I'm excited about Hoffman. He is a legitimate Hall of Famer.

Our rotation looks like this:

Gallardo, Looper, Parra, Suppan, Bush. Gallardo and Parra I think will both be 10 game winners. Bush could do that also, but he wore down so much last year that I don't know. Suppan is overpaid, and not really reliable. Looper is interesting. He had a piss poor year last year on a piss poor team. With our bats he could be a 15 game winner.

Our Bullpen is:

Todd Coffey, Mark DiFelice, Julio, Seth McClug, Mitch Stetter, Dave Riske and Carlos Villanueva

Coffey and DiFelice are two of my faves. I think they both will be below a 3.0 ERA. Seth McClug is wasted on relief work, he should be starting instead of Suppan. Stetter I think will be a Nashville Sound before the all star break. I don't see him as a brewer. Riske is hit or miss. Villanueva will be the fill in closer. A role he is just not good at. Hoffman, please get healthy fast!

Our lineup is just the same as last year:

Jeff Kendall, Ryan Braun, JJ Hardy, Corey Hart, Prince Feilder, Bill Hall, Ricky Weeks, Mike Cameron. With back up from Casey McGahee, Craig Counsell, Mike Rivera, and Brad Nelson.

Kendall is reliable and should be the leadoff man instead of Weeks. Braun, Hardy, Hart and Feilder are all stars. Hall is average, Cameron is gonna whiff. A lot. Weeks needs to be dealt. NOW. McGahee is an unknown, he looked good in Spring Training but I don't know. Counsell and Rivera are good change of pace kinda guys. Nelson I think could press weeks for a starting spot.

All together I think we have a 90 win club. I don't know if that is enough to make the playoffs though. I'm excited. I think I'm gonna keep track of the Brewers this year on this blog. Enjoy!