I don’t know how recent the information is, but Jon Heyman has the Brewers as one of a slew of teams interested in Brian Fuentes, the former Rockies and Angels closer.
while #redsox like fuentes, they have company. others w/some interest: tor, tb, colo, sea, minn, pitt, phil, milw, nyy & nym
Judging by the recent signings of Sean Green and Takashi Saito, I don’t doubt that the Brewers were at one time interested in Fuentes. I just don’t know if the team has the space — both on the roster and in the budget — for a guy like Fuentes now. I’m not sure how wise of an investment Fuentes would be, anyway — he’s always been an extreme flyball pitcher, and while he’s played much of his career in Coors Field, he’s typically gotten very lucky with his ERA. He simply hasn’t been very good since leaving Colorado, posting a combined 0.7 fWAR in the past two seasons. The money could simply be better spent elsewhere, assuming it’s even there.
If the Brewers are in fact still pursuing him and they end up signing him, he would be the third or fourth pitcher with “closing experience” in the bullpen, along with John Axford, Saito, and LaTroy Hawkins (although his experiences closing while with the Cubs weren’t exactly positive). This may be a crazy conspiracy theory, but perhaps Melvin is stockpiling former closers so he can swing a deadline deal, trading one of them for midseason help at shortstop or even using a trade to restock the farm system. Who knows — maybe this time he could be on the right side of a Scott Linebrink-type trade.
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