Brewers unlikely to add before Opening Day

Phoenix ~ The Milwaukee Brewers will end Spring Training in a couple weeks and head west to San Diego to play the Padres on Opening Day on March 29th. And with many free agents still on the market, including star pitcher Jake Arrieta, many Brewers fans are wondering if the Brew Crew will make any additions to the team before Opening Day.

Today when Brewers General Manager David Stearns appeared on a radio show on 105.7 “The Fan” he repeatedly said that while he is trying to keep tabs on the players still available, he doesn’t see Milwaukee adding anybody to their Opening Day roster.

“The work is never done. We’re always working, always looking to improve the team. I’ve said it throughout camp and it remains true today that I anticipate our current group to be the group that brings us into Opening Day.”, Stearns said.

Most of that probably had to do with the expensive prices and long term contracts Arrieta and fellow pitchers Lance Lynn and Alex Cobb have been demanding throughout the off season.

After the Brewers surprising breakout season last season in which they were only a game from playing in the Wild Card game, Milwaukee shocked the baseball world by adding two star outfielders within hours – Christian Yelich via trade, and Lorenzo Cain via free agency. But the Brewers need to be responsible with their money as they are still a young team built for the future.

“We need to make sure that we continue to manage our payroll responsibly so we can continue to add to this group in the coming years as we remain competitive and look to prolong this stretch of really quality play.”

”It’s a balancing act. We want to aid this current team as much as possible, we also want to make sure that we have the ability to add to groups going forward in future years when the right opportunities present themselves.”

Milwaukee does have a lot of money to spend, but since they are one of the youngest teams in the Major League – loaded with future stars – Stearns will not want to pay the majority of the money to one or two free agent pick-ups.

However, the off season was still filled with rumors about the Brew Crew signing Arrieta or Yu Darvish, who eventually signed with the Chicago Cubs just before Spring Training begun.

“This offseason in particular there has been more, I would say frankly, false speculation of us than I have seen previously. There’s always a segment of the rumor mill that I read and I scratch my head a little bit and wonder where that came from, (but) this off season there was a higher percentage of that.

I tend to assume it’s because there was so little activity around baseball, we were one of the clubs that were actually making moves, and so because we were active in certain fronts, writers picked up on that, baseball personalities picked up on that, and we were rumored in a number of situations. Some of it was true, a lot of what was rumored over the winter frankly was not.”

“My expectation is that our significant moves, whether it’s trade or free agency, have probably come and gone. Having said that, it would be foolish of us not to at least understand where the market is on any available player, whether that player is being shopped by another team or that player is out there on the open market. That’s why I never say never, but I will reiterate that I anticipate that we go into the season with the current group we have.”

Problems still may arise where Milwaukee needs help from a player still on the market whether it is injury or failure to produce.

At this point, though, the man in charge of it all seems to like the depth that he has built in Milwaukee, and so do I.