2004 wasn't to be the Brewers' year either. They actually dropped a half a game, falling to 67-94 for the season. On the other hand, the team kept adding assets and re-building a crumbling foundation.
The June draft proved bountiful again, as Yovani Gallardo, the team's ace, and Angel Salome, the team's best catching prospect, were both picked up.
During the season, it was a fairly quiet time, as the team didn't do much for building. Russell Branyan was added to be a bat and bring people into the park, but he was nothing more than a stopgap. The team did add Derrick Turnbow after the season on waivers, but most of the changes were addition by subtraction. The team also lost Craig Counsell for a season, as Counsell opted to go back to Arizona for two seasons.
Damian Miller was picked up, and would catch for the team for three seasons. Two trades came up over three days, though, which would shape the course of the next few seasons. Well, at least one of them would.
Dan Kolb was shipped off for pitching prospect Jose Cappelan. Kolb's effectiveness was coming to an end, and while the Brewers didn't get a bounty for him, they had the chance, as Cappelan was a hard throwing righty. It didn't pan out, but it didn't hurt the team either.
However, the team shipped off Scott Podsednik, their center fielder, and relief pitcher Jose Vizcaino in exchange for Carlos Lee. Lee would be a slugger for two seasons, but wanted too much to stick around in the end. Still, it was a good attempt at finding a building block. Podsednik would never reach the heights he did in Milwaukee, although he'd hit a homer in the 2005 World Series. Yes, he was named to the All-Star team that year, too, but his OBP was better than his slugging percentage, and he got caught stealing 23 times. It went downhill from there.
Rick Helling, Ricky Botallico, and Jeff Cirillo would be their freely available talent over the offseason, Helling and Botallico wouldn't amount to much, but Cirillo would return to Milwaukee to become a bat off the bench and their jack of all infield trades, pretty much Craig Counsell's role.
Step by step, the team would start to gel into something very much different than what it had been. It would still take some time, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment