Zach Greinke Brewers Ace, Thoughts

The Brewers who have acquired Zach Greinke to be the ace or co-ace of their pitching staff have shocked the MLB landscape with their wheeling and dealing in the winter of 2010. In order for the Brewers to acquire Greinke they had to pay a major price make no doubt, they gave up Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, pitching prospect Jake Odorizzi, and Jeremy Jeffress. Those are a lot of the top prospects left in the Brewers system after they already had to give up top prospect Lawrie for Marcum in the trade with the Blue Jays. The Brewers also get Yuniesky Betancourt  from the Royals to help out at shortstop.

Zach Greinke only went 10-14 with a 4.17 ERA in 2010 after winning the 2009 Cy Young so why did we move so much to get this guy, why was everyone tripping over their feet for him? The reason is he still has dominating Ace of your rotation stuff, and if he is on a team like the Brewers who will hang crooked numbers on the scoreboard he should win a lot of games. Look Zach is a guy who does have some questions about his mental makeup and he has made it clear that loosing in KC was getting to him, and that happens. Zach Greinke will not be a loser on this Brewers team, not with the offense knowing they are now playing for Greinke, Gallardo on Marcum. Do you think Prince, Braun, Weeks, Hart are fired up right now, you bet you bet they are. The Brewers just put together a young solid front end rotation with two aces to go with the scariest lineup in the NL 1 - 4.

Looking at the players they gave up though Escobar is replaceable he was never going to be an All Star shortstop in our opinion despite the fact he is very young. Cain who hit .306 with his cup of coffee in Milwaukee in 2010 might be harder to replace because outfield prospects with a bat are harder to find but Cain is hardly top end talent himself and the Brewers corners are patrolled by Braun and Hart so all they need in center for the years to come is the best defensive center fielder they can find. Jake Odorizzi was rated the Brewers number 11 prospect and did a nice job in 2010 at A ball but the Brewers can't wait for him to arrive in Milwaukee as they clearly were taking their time with him so his ETA was like 2013 maybe 2012 if everything fell right. Now we all know about Jeffress and his fastball and the pot, so maybe we gave up a ton with him and maybe not but we do know he is still a prospect that isn't a sure fire can't miss. Hopefully Jeffress doesn't turn into the Hamilton of pitchers for our sake. Already the Royals are being criticized by the national media for not getting enough for Greinke, think about it they got one major league ready player and it isn't like they got any prospects rated in the top 10 by Baseball America.

We will have more on this to come but the Cubs, Cardinals, Astros, and Reds have been put on notice for 2011, and our guess is they are going oh shit game on in 2011. Also we can guess that you might want to get calling for the Brewers tickets early again this off-season as demand just jumped big time.

Update: The Brewers are getting Yuniesky Betancourt back from the Royals so they can breathe a little easier at short, but not much as as Betancourt is probably one of the very worst starting shortstops in the majors.