Prince Fielder is probably not heading back to Milwaukee. We were already pretty certain of that, but now everyone’s almost completely sure. To be fair, there’s an entire post-season between now and Prince’s last game in a Brewer uniform and the Brewers certainly have a shot at making deep run into the playoffs this year with Fielder playing a prominent role. That’s what’s important to the Brewers now, but it won’t stop us from asking what the Brewers should do at first base after the Fielder era ends. The Brewers will still be in pretty good shape with Yovani Gallardo, Shaun Marcum, Zack Greinke, Ryan Braun, and Corey Hart all back in Milwaukee for 2012, so the right complimentary piece could help them stay near the top of the NL Central, even without Fielder.
Now that we’ve asked where Fielder might end up, it’s time to ask who’s going to replace him. So what kind of options do the Brew Crew have?
Internal Options
The Brewers could simply choose to replace the big man at first with one of two young players already in their organization. Mat Gamel rose through their minor league system as a third baseman, but his glove is brutal at third and so a position switch is likely. The problem with Gamel is that he’s lost quite a bit of luster in the last couple of seasons. He entered 2009 as Baseball America’s 34th best prospect after tearing up Double-A with a .329/.395/.537 line as a 22-year old. Since then, though, he tailed off a bit in his first season at Triple-A (.278/.367/.473) and in limited action with the Brewers over the last three years (with a cameo in 2008), he’s hit just .222/.309/.374. Obviously that’s not going to cut it at first base, and so the Brewers will probably be pretty hesitant to just hand him Fielder’s job.
They could also go with Taylor Green, who made his big league debut with the Brewers on August 31. Green absolutely killed the ball in Triple-A Nashville this year (.336/.413/.583 with 22 homers in 120 games), but he was also 24 after struggling quite a bit at the Double-A level in 2009 and 2010. He’s doing OK in very limited action since his callup (.320/.320/.440 with three doubles in 25 PAs), but, again, he just doesn’t seem like a guy that the Brewers would trust to step right into Prince Fielder’s shoes. So what other options do they have?
Free Agency
Prince Fielder won’t even be the best free agent first baseman on the market this winter, but it’s safe to say that if the Brewers can’t afford Prince Fielder they probably can’t afford Albert Pujols, either. The problem, though, is that there’s not much in the free agent first baseman class besides Fielder and Pujols. Could the Brewers get Lance Berkman to play for his third NL Central team? Maybe, but only if Pujols stays in St. Louis. Derrek Lee is having a torrid second half, especially since coming back to the NL with the Pirates at the trade deadline, and he doesn’t seem too keen on returning to Pittsburgh.
Guys like Lee and Berkman aren’t without risks, though. Lee just turned 36 and he’s gotten off to very slow starts in both 2010 and 2011. His strikeouts and walks are both trending in the wrong direction. It’s not going to be long before his slow starts turn into bad seasons. Berkman’s also going to be 36 before spring training starts and his career seemed to be headed in the wrong direction before his unexpected resurgence this year. Betting on that again probably isn’t terribly smart.
The other option here is Carlos Pena, though, again, I’m not sure what the Brewers are willing to pay on the open market and Pena might be looking for a longer deal after signing a one-year contract with the Cubs for 2010. Still, he’s probably the best fit for them on the open market because he’ll replace a decent amount of Fielder’s power and on-base abilities but his low batting average might keep his price in the range that the Brewers can afford.
The Trade Market
There are a couple ways the Brewers could go in the trade market, which are nicely broken down at Beyond the Box Score. The Brewers don’t really have much in their farm system to trade after last winter’s deals for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum and while they could theoretically trade Greinke or Marcum (who are both free agents after 2012) for a first baseman, that seems counter-productive at this point. That probably rules out a trade for a promising young hitter like Logan Morrison and Yonder Alonso is probably out of consideration given that he’s on the Reds at the moment and they likely won’t want to help the Brewers’ drive to win the 2012 NL Central. Someone like Kendrys Morales (if he’s healthy) or Adam LaRoche, who’s been squeezed out by Mike Morse in Washington, might be relatively cheap trade options who would at least give the Brewers some solid production at the plate.
The final verdict
I do think the Brewers will try to bring in someone from outside of the system to play first base in 2012, but it won’t be someone exciting. Guys like Lee and Berkman are heading into the twilight of their careers and that makes them risky, guys like Morales are injury risks, and guys like LaRoche just aren’t that good. They amount to lottery tickets; one or two of those four will probably have good seasons in 2012, but it’s not easy from here to tell which ones are the ones that will. Pena seems like a good fit, but in a thin free agent market his price tag could get pretty high and even if the Brewers can pay him, they won’t be the only team looking for a first baseman.
The Brewers still have the framework in place to be good in 2012 even without Fielder. All they really need is someone to plug the hole at first by fielding ground balls, and not completely embarrassing themselves at the plate. The problem is that that may not be all that easy to this winter.
