FanHouse DougMelvin

Despite a disappointing 2009 season, the Brewers confirmed Sunday that they will bring manager Ken Macha back in 2010 with a team option for 2011. In fact, most of Macha's staff will be back, with only interim pitching coach Chris Bosio and bullpen coach Stan Kyles not being offered contracts.

That's not the only news out of Milwaukee on the last day of the season. The Brewers are also apparently close to re-signing closer Trevor Hoffman, who pitched exceptionally well in his first season in Milwaukee, saving 37 games with a 1.70 ERA and a 4.27 K/BB ratio. He's 41, but the all-time saves leader certainly didn't pitch his age this year.

After winning the NL wild card last year, the Brewers have taken a step back in 2009. They're six games below .500 and well out of both the NL Central and wild card races. Despite that, team owner Mark Attanasio went out of his way to endorse general manager Doug Melvin in 2010, saying that he has faith in Melvin fixing the holes the club currently has.

Since taking over as Brewers general manager in 2002, Melvin has turned what was one of the worst franchises in baseball into a competitive team with a slew of young talent. There's no denying the Brewers have regressed this year, but it'd be foolish to show Melvin the door so quickly when he's the main reason they actually have somewhere to step back from.

The Milwaukee Brewers made the playoffs last season for the first time since 1982, and their foundation of youth seemed to indicate they would at least be in the race for 2009. Sure, losing CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets would hurt the pitching staff in a big way, but the Crew would have a full season of Yovani Gallardo. And they were in the thick of the race for a while.

Since July 1, though, the Brewers are 12-23 and have fallen 6 1/2 games out of first place in the mediocre NL Central. Wednesday morning, Brewers brass finally decided enough is enough and made three pretty significant transactions:

Ken Macha is doing it again.

The manager who has never had a losing season -- not as a minor league manager, major league coach or major league manager -- has the Brewers playing some of the best baseball in the big leagues.

As they head into this weekend's series with the Cardinals, who are tied with the Brewers for first in the NL Central, the Brewers have won 18 of their last 24.

While Macha would be the first to tell you that the players are more responsible for winning than the manager, this team has Macha's fingerprints all over it.

FanHouse continues it 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers are a really interesting team. Last March, everyone expected them to make a run at the playoffs, and they expected them to do so without any knowledge of the CC Sabathia trade and with the assumption that Ben Sheets would spend some time on the disabled list. In the end, they did make the playoffs, but they did it with half of a season of Sabathia and almost 200 innings from Sheets. Now those two are gone, and everyone expects the Brewers to take a step back this year.

As the clock ticks closer and closer to the day that pitchers and catchers report, I assume that Brewer fans are starting to get a bit nervous about their starting rotation. As it stands, Yovani Gallardo and Manny Parra are holding down the top two spots and while they've got high ceilings, they're pretty unproven. Behind them it only gets worse with Dave Bush followed by the fading Jeff Suppan followed by Seth McClung. And that's it.

Accordingly, it seems like the Brewers are finding their names attached to rumors involving just about every free agent pitcher left. Unfortunately, Jon Garland is now off the market and today GM Doug Melvin pointedly refuted the Oliver Perez rumors being floated around Milwaukee right now. Apparently, Milwaukee would rather keep some payroll flexibility for the season should they need to make some kind of trade once the season starts.

For a while it seemed that the Brewers and Prince Fielder were going to be heading to arbitration to hammer out a deal for Fielder in 2009. Fielder wanted $8 million, the Brewers were willing to go to $6 million, and in between the two Scott Boras sat like Mr. Burns tapping his fingers together while plotting evil schemes to block out the sun in Milwaukee until Prince got his money.

While there was also some talk that the Brewers may trade Fielder -- he could help fill some other needs the team has -- general manager Doug Melvin denied any chance of that happening, and now the chances of a trade seem even more remote. That's because according to Jon Heyman at SI.com, the two sides are on the verge of agreeing to a two-year deal.

For the past couple weeks, word out of Milwaukee has been that the distance between the money Prince Fielder wants and what the Brewers want to pay him was insurmountable. Right now, there's about $2 million between Fielder's demand ($8 million) and MIlwaukee's offer ($6 million). Given the size of the gap and the fact that Scott Boras is Fielder's agent, an arbitration hearing seems inevitable.

Doug Melvin, though, seems optimistic that can be avoided and he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel so this morning. He says that he's been talking to Boras and good progress is being made towards a deal. That's more or less the complete opposite of the indignation shown by Boras and Fielder when the figures were exchanged, but they've still got a while to talk before they go to a hearing.

For a brief minute last week it seemed certain that Mike Cameron and Melky Cabrera would switch teams, but Brewers GM Doug Melvin confirmed that the proposed trade with the Yankees has officially died. What happened? Apparently both sides took the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" mantra a little too far, refusing to follow up discussions that began during the Winter Meetings with a phone call.

Melvin told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, "I haven't heard from (Yankees general manager) Brian Cashman, and I haven't called him. Cashman confirmed as much to the New York Post, saying "He hasn't told us, we haven't talked since Vegas.

Pick up the phone, fellas, there's still time to get this deal done! Or ... maybe not. Talks first began to stall when the Yankees asked the Brewers to either pay a portion of Cameron's $10 million salary or take on the remaining $12 million Kei Igawa is owed over the next three years. The Brewers balked, and uless they have a change of heart, this deal will likely stay dead. As a Yankees official told the New York Daily News:

"Maybe he thinks we'll be upset and jump back in," the official said when informed of Melvin's comments. "We didn't think Cameron was worth $10 million - and we still don't. I guess (Melvin) finally got the message."

It sounds to me like the Yankees drew a line in the sand. Unless Melvin suddenly feels like subsidizing the Yankees' outfield, this one probably isn't going to happen.

Trade talks that would send Mike Cameron to the Yankees and Melky Cabrera to the Brewers were moving along swimmingly yesterday until the Yankees insisted the Brewers pay a portion of Cameron's $10 million salary.

Objectively speaking, it makes sense: the Yankees are giving up a 24-year-old hitter with potential for a guy who turns 36 next month who's almost certainly going to be a one-year rental. Long-term, there's no question the Brewers are getting the better end of the deal, so asking Milwaukee to chip in a few dollars doesn't seem unreasonable.

That said, it's the freaking Yankees! After doling out $161 million for CC Sabathia (dashing Milwaukee's hopes in the process), arguing about a few dollars now seems insulting. It's kind of like a yard sale: everyone is expected to haggle a little bit, but if you pull up in a Lexus and can only pay with hundred dollar bills, you're paying full price.

As it happens, it seems the Yankees finally came around: talks eventually picked back up yesterday afternoon via phone and ended with Brian Cashman and Doug Melvin agreeing to resume talks today.