Afternoon, all. I'm getting back to doing this more frequently, I promise. Life is tough, ya know?
This week, as some of you may be aware, is the MLB Winter Meetings. This is normally where all the big moves of the offseason occur, and where the Brewers made one of their biggest moves last offseason when they shipped off INF Brett Lawrie for SP Shaun Marcum. In fact, one year ago yesterday was the date they made that move, but this year, the Brewers seem far less aggressive.
One of the somewhat surprising rumors surrounding them, however, is their interest in free agent 3B Aramis Ramirez, former employee of the dastardly Chicago Cubs. On a personal level, this is a tough one for me to swallow since I've been taught to despise every member of the Cubs no matter who they are, and perhaps to a greater extent I've found a great dislike in that who those Northsiders refer to as 'A-Ram'. However, on a skill level, it's hard to deny he is a good player and would be a middle of the order bat for just about any team this side of the AL East. We're the Brewers to sign him, I think I could get used to the idea of him being in the lineup everyday, so long as the price is right (he wants $15 million a season, which feels just slightly out of the Brewers budget, but perhaps he wont cost that much if Doug Melvin is seriously considering him?).
The question with Ramirez is not with his bat though. Offensively, he's a guy who gets on base at a nice rate, has the ability to hit .300, and averages 25 HRs a season. The real question is with the other side of his game. Ramirez has been one of the lowest rated defensive 3B for the past few years. Every so often he has a nice year, but in general he's been well below average, especially the past few seasons. Defense is a tricky aspect with me. I submit to the theory that it's undervalued, but overrated, if that makes any sense. At the end of the day, I think a team can win with average or below average defense, as the Brewers did this past season (they won 96 games and went to the NLCS with one of the worst defensive infields in baseball), but this was also because their pitching had been so good.
This doesn't mean I think "screw defense, who needs it when you got bangers and big arms". Not at all. I simply feel there are positions where it's nice to have a good defender, but you don't absolutely need one, like with Ryan Braun in LF. Braun, like many other LF, is not a good defender. That's why he plays LF. On the other hand though, SS is an important defensive position. It's not just nice to have a good defender there, that guy should arguably be your best athlete on the field, you need someone who can play the position and play it well to be successful. Betancourt is not a good defensive SS, anyone who thinks he "wasn't that bad" has severe low expectations for what a bad SS looks like. Yuniesky Betancourt should never play another game for the Milwaukee Brewers. Period. And yet, the Brewers won in spite of him, mostly because the pitching was so good. I could go on and on, but I've had enough arguments about Yuniesky Betancourt to last me a lifetime. Let's get back to Aramis Ramirez.
Can the Brewers win with Aramis Ramirez's defense at 3B? Absolutely. They won with McGehee's defense there (who had a surprisingly nice year last season according to UZR, but mostly an anomaly though as he didn't quite pass the eye test for a lot of folks, myself included), they can win with his. In a perfect world though, Ramirez's value is probably greatest at 1B. He won't play there, but that's where he'd be best suited at this point in his career. Whether or not he signs will be determined in the coming week(s), but believe this blogger when he says that if he has to witness an INF involving Ramirez and Betancourt defensively, he may just claw his eyes out to spare himself the pain.
