Ryan Braun’s performance-enhancing drug saga is ongoing, and nobody seems to know with any certainty how it will end. Unfortunately, the Milwaukee Brewers are part of that large group eagerly awaiting the outcome. The Brewers aren’t going to re-sign Prince Fielder and now stand to potentially lose their best player for almost a third of the season.

But what do they do?

The team is mired in a strange situation. Do they replace him? Can they replace him? What happens if they spend money to replace him and he doesn’t end up getting suspended? Can they spend money? Realistically, payroll is probably close to its limit right now. Even if Mark Attanasio decides to increase spending, the best way to use those funds remains unclear.

On one hand, idly standing by in the face of his suspension could create an ugly situation: the team might be far from contention by the time he returns, and there is no guarantee that either Zack Greinke or Shaun Marcum will sign extensions. On the other hand, signing a talented player — perceived as a starter around the league — could create a logjam when Braun returns, or if he never leaves to begin with. While this isn’t ideal for the Brewers themselves, it opens up an important strategic dialogue.

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Ron Swanson would be proud. On Thursday, the Twins and GM Terry Ryan helped themselves to a heaping plate of amenable bacon, officially inking outfielder Josh Willingham to a three-year, $21 million deal. The deal, which includes a plate appearance-based incentive in 2014 ($1 million for 525 PA in ’13), was announced after Willingham passed what pretty much amounted to a two-day physical in Minneapolis.

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Episode 116
If you’re familiar with Ben Greenman, it’s probably from his work as an editor at The New Yorker and/or as author of such book-length collections as Superbad and Celebrity Chekhov. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Greenman, merely know that he’s smart, funny, and that he tweets (from his handle @bengreenman) with some frequency about sports, including baseball.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 47 min. play time.)

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We’ve all known for a long time that the Mets are in trouble financially. But we may not have realized just how much trouble. Four days ago, it emerged that the Mets had received a secret $40 million loan from Bank of America approved by MLB, still not having paid off a $25 million loan from Major League Baseball a year ago. As Forbes reports, the loan was prompted by their inability to pay bonds used to finance the construction of Citi Field, and the Mets will owe $32 million more in each of 2013 and 2014. It’s not exactly robbing Peter to pay Paul, but for a team snookered by a major Ponzi scheme, taking out loan after loan definitely isn’t a good trend.

The need for cash was exacerbated by the dissolution of the David Einhorn deal in September, in which the wealthy investor eventually decided against investing $200 million in a minority stake in the cash-strapped team. The team tried to put a brave face on it, but they had lost out on money they thought they’d sewn up, and the new loan proves that they didn’t raise as much money through new sources as they hoped. The trouble is that the loans, and the mammoth amounts of debt owed from the construction of Citi Field, detract from the book value of the team in the event that there is a sale. The New York Daily News reported that MLB isn’t about to step in and take the team away just yet, but is growing increasingly nervous about their ability to repay their loans and service their debt.
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The Rays have been building bullpens on the cheap for years now, not necessarily because they want to but because they don’t have any other choice. They added to their stable of low cost relievers earlier this week by acquiring right-hander Burke Badenhop from the Marlins for catcher prospect Jake Jefferies. In his work for MLB Trade Rumors, our own Matt Swartz projects Badenhop to earn $1.1 million in 2012, his second time through arbitration. The Marlins have been spending like crazy this winter, but I guess they had to trim the fat somewhere.

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Oakland and Arizona recently completed a five-player trade that saw three prospects change hands. Oakland sent Major League pitchers Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow to Arizona in return for prospects Jarrod Parker, Ryan Cook, and Collin Cowgill. Parker is definitely the best prospect acquired as neither Cook nor Cowgill made the D-Back’s original Top 15 list. Oakland, though, has less depth in their system so all three players can be found on the new list.

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One of the most frequent questions we get is: The players names and team names are garbled with HTML when I export data. How can I fix this?

Simple Tag Removal:

To remove any HTML tags from the data all you need to do is a quick Find & Replace All.

Fill in “<*>” (no quotes) into the Find what box, and then leave the Replace with box blank and hit Replace All.

And that’s it. You now have a worksheet completely free of all HTML.

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Sometime today the posting fee for Yu Darvish may leak — even though the Nippon Ham Fighters have until Tuesday to publicly accept the winning bid. The number may not be as high as the $51.1 million that it took to get Daisuke Matsuzaka, and yet it still might cause some eyebrows to rise. At the same time, Darvish is a 25-year-old pitcher available for money alone. How much would a comparable pitcher garner in America if he was a free agent?

Let’s try to find a comp.

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In 2011, the Dodgers scored 644 runs, ninth in the National League. The offense was powered, of course, by Matt Kemp, who just missed the batting Triple Crown. The next most significant offensive contributions after Kemp came from veteran infielder Jamey Carroll, a somewhat-injured Andre Ethier, and a second-half surging James Loney. And that was pretty much it.

Carroll’s gone, having signed with the Minnesota Twins. Ethier and Loney are in the final year of their contracts. Kemp will continue to anchor the offense. Who else will get on base and score runs for the Dodgers in 2012?

This off-season, the Dodgers signed free agents Matt Treanor, Mark Ellis, Jerry Hairston, Juan Rivera, and Adam Kennedy. Rivera is the youngest of the bunch; he’ll be in his age-34 season in 2012. Treanor, Hairston and Kennedy will all be in their age 36-season. That’s a lot of players on the downside of their careers.

Let’s take a look at the 2012 Dodgers by position.

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The Milwaukee Brewers were perhaps a bit surprised last week when reliever Francisco Rodriguez accepted their arbitration offer, likely putting the team on the hook for something north of the $11.5 million Rodriguez made last season in the third year of a three-year contract he originally signed with the Mets.

While Brewer GM Doug Melvin has stated that the K-Rod situation doesn’t represent a miscalculation on the club’s part — and while the move hasn’t prevented the Brewers from signing shortstop Alex Gonzalez and third baseman Aramis Ramirez in the meantime — it’s also likely the case that Melvin et al. would prefer not to make a set-up man the team’s highest-paid player in 2012. With Zack Greinke due a (non-Rodriguez) team-high of $13.5 million in 2012, that’s a distinct possibility.

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