[BirdWatcher]

-Ryan Campbell led the Brewers in WAR last season (5.5) and had a wRC+ of 150. Although he got off to a slow start in his first season as a Brewer, he finished strong to hit .320/.419/.478. He wasn't very good defensively at third base, with a -3.5 ZR and 29 errors. But his value overall cannot be debated.
But here's the thing, I find him frustrating. He is off to another slow start, batting .241/.349/.370. His defense is much improved in the early going- he has a 2.9 ZR and has only committed 2 errors. But one of the things that Campbell was supposed to bring to the Brewers was a middle-of-the-order power bat. He hit just 16 homers last year and is on pace for 10 this year.
Campbell turns 31 in late August but still has two years of arbitration eligibility left. The logical thing is probably to at least try to sign him to a 1-year extension for next season and count on his production to return to more career-average levels for him. He agreed to a very reasonable contract for this season (472K) and even with a healthy bump expected for next season, if he approaches his production of 1985 he will be well worth it.
On the other hand, the Brewers top third base prospect, Jeremy Beeson, is pretty much WPK-ready now. Beeson has excellent contact hitting abilities, but won't walk much (unlike Campbell) and doesn't have much power (then again, does Campbell, really, in spite of his past and his scouting reports?). Beeson should be a very solid defensive third baseman and with some more experience could play second very well and even shortstop passably well. Beeson will likely get a late-season call-up this year and then we will see if he looks overmatched. It is very much an open question to me whether to keep Campbell or fully embrace the youth movement.




-Justin Banks is a similar question. Banks is eligible to be a free agent at the end of the season. He has long been one of my favorite players in the league, well before he joined the Brewers. And he's been good for us. He hit .311/.331/.467 last year, hitting 34 doubles and 14 homers while stealing 26 bases and only being caught 8 times. His defense was not as good as expected and he finished with -0.9 ZR. This year that is even worse, with a -1.2 ZR thus far. He is, though, off to a good start with the bat, hitting .333/.387/.456 and is on pace for a 4.8 WAR season. (He has also stolen 9 bags while being caught just once.) But while Banks is a good guy with a great work ethic, he is also considered greedy.
And we have this guy waiting in the minors:




Nick Mull should be a much better fielding second baseman than Banks and he also would bring great speed to the team, like Banks. Mull hasn't shown himself to be a consistently good hitter in the minors but he has at times hit for more power than expected (11 HR's in 288 PA's in single A, then 17 HR's in 539 PA's in AA). He profiles as a sparkplug as well. Other than maybe underwhelming batting, the other weakness for Mull is that his weak throwing arm keeps him from being a useful multi-position utility infielder. But his basic skills indicate that he could be an above average starter at second base.
And we have Mike Garcia, who has mostly been DH'ing this season. Garcia is naturally a second baseman, and while he isn't the defender Mull is, he isn't a liability there either, and is very good on the pivot. And he hits. He is hitting .323/.376/.495 in 109 PA's this year and hit 3 homers in his brief stint with the Brewers last year (41 PA's). Garcia is a switch-hitter who hits better from the left-side of the plate while Mull is a right-handed hitter. So this might be an ideal semi-platoon situation.

-As has been well documented here, the Brewers have been stockpiling pitching arms (first starters and much more recently relievers) for years. Because of this surplus the Brewers have been able to trade away some pitching prospects the last few years to fill other holes on the team. They traded top pitching prospect, Mike Costa, who had been a disappointment as a Brewer, to San Antonio in the off-season after the 1984 campaign. Costa wasn't good in his first year with the Keys either, finishing with a 12-14 record and a horrible 5.97 ERA. He is a bit better thus far this year, going 4-3 with a 4.03 ERA (but also a 3.92 FIP, his FIP last year was 5.15).
The Brewers also traded away slightly lesser prospect Jim McKnight just prior to this season. McKnight, who is durable and has a solid 5-pitch repertoire, but is considered only average in terms of movement and control, is currently 2nd in the SJL in ERA with a 1.86 mark over 38.2 IP's. It's a small sample size, admittedly, but his BABIP against is, if anything, a bit high and his FIP is 2.56, so he is off to a good start for this new team, the El Paso Dawgs.

Fortunately, this doesn't hurt as much as it could with some of the young pitchers we kept, Stephen Brooks (just had a bounce-back start after suffering his first loss of the season- was Player of the Game even though it ended up being a Denver loss) and Eric Fehrenbacher, are both pitching well this year. Even Jose Corpeno, in his 2 starts has been pretty solid and has a 1-1 record with a 3.60 ERA and 2.97 FIP.
And with two top 100 prospects who are starting pitchers at the top levels of our minor league system- Bernie Lopez (#30 on top 100 prospect list) who is at AAA Chester and Mike Warner (#3) at AA Nashville- the Brewers can afford to wish McKnight well on his new team.