The Brewers will exchange arbitration numbers with their five arby-eligible players tomorrow, and once the figures are known by both sides, contracts to avoid a hearing are sure to follow.
Of the five — Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Shaun Marcum, Manny Parra, and Kameron Loe — only Weeks has been brought up as a serious target for a longterm extension. It’d be nice to extend Greinke now, and Marcum at least seems open to the idea, but the Brewers would likely want to see both pitch for their new team before opening up the checkbook.
The talks with Weeks have been going on since (as far as we know) the Winter Meetings in late December. Things seem to be moving slowly, but I wondered this morning if talks would pick up as arbitration season nears. Turns out I wasn’t far off, as Tom Haudricourt reported later in the day that the Brewers have in fact been focusing on avoiding arbitration with Weeks by working on a multiyear deal.
“We’ve focused exclusively on a multi-year deal,” said Ash. “We’ve never discussed a one-year deal. I’m not concerned about it. One way or the other, it will get resolved.”
Predictably, it doesn’t sound like they’ve even bothered wasting their time taking the same approach with Prince Fielder.
“I don’t want to comment on that. We’re focusing on one year now.”
Right now, it looks like there’s two certainties about the next few weeks. One is Fielder cashing in with an arbitration hearing. The other is Weeks getting signed before things get that far, and that’s a good thing.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
