Todd Coffey Non-Tendered (Update: Inglett, Too)

The Brewers probably won’t officially announce their tender offers until the 11 p.m. deadline, but Tom Haudricourt is reporting that Todd Coffey will be one of the non-tendered players. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise — when I wrote about possible non-tender candidates a couple days ago, Coffey was the only player I felt should be non-tendered, and that was mostly for financial reasons.

Coffey was another waiver wire pick-up by Doug Melvin that turned to gold. While he wasn’t eligible for the postseason roster, Coffey’s pitching in September of 2008 — he didn’t allow a run in 9 appearances — helped the team makes the playoffs. He was nearly unhittable out of the bullpen in 2009, but was bound to regress a bit last season. Unfortunately, injuries also played a factor in 2010, and he could never quite get it going. As he battled injuries and ineffectiveness, the Brewers found a slew of younger (and cheaper) arms, which likely played into this decision. He had a nice run in Milwaukee, but like most relievers, he burned out pretty quickly.

It’s still possible Coffey is brought back at a lower salary than he would have received in arbitration, but considering how much Ron Roenicke was talking about the team’s young arms in his introductory press conference, I wouldn’t count on there being a place for him. Best of luck in the future, Todd. We’ll miss the Coffey Clock and the Ultimate Warrior theme music.

Here’s the trademark sprint, one last time:

UPDATE (8:30 PM): It turns out the Brewers failing to sign Eric Hinske didn’t save Joe Inglett, after all — the team announced he’s being non-tendered as well. Like I said the other day, I don’t expect Inglett to hit as well as he did in 2010 next season, but I would’ve guessed the team would have tendered him a contract. As a first-time arby guy, he wasn’t likely to make much more than the $410,000 he made last year. Tom Haudricourt says the Brewers have interest in bringing Inglett back if he doesn’t get any other offers, but at this point it just seems like he’s trying to maintain a good relationship in case other plans don’t fall into place. If the Brewers really wanted Inglett back, they would’ve tendered him a contract. The fact that they let him go makes it seem — to me, at least — that Melvin has something else in mind, whether it’s another free agent, a Rule 5 pick, or someone like Eric Farris to provide more speed off the bench. At least it’ll be interesting to see where he goes from here, and we’ll always have that scoreless inning Inglett pitched to remember him by.