It's been a long offseason for the Brewers. They lost out on CC Sabathia, despite making a huge offer, and they haven't really found anyone on the free agent market to fill the gaping hole he leaves in the rotation. In fact, they really haven't found much of anyone to help fill in their holes in the rotation and bullpen. They're still not making much progress with improving the rotation, but today it looks like they're getting close to filling one of the gaps in their bullpen. Tom Haudricort reported on the Journal-Sentinel's Brewers' Blog that the team was showing some serious interest in closer Trevor Hoffman. His report was just updated to mention that Hoffman seems mutually interested in heading to Milwaukee. From the way things sound, the Brewers may make an offer in the very near future in an attempt to make up for the loss of closer Salmon Torres.
Hoffman's 41, but he certainly seems like a better risk for Milwaukee to be taking than Eric Gagne was last year. Still, his ERA did go way up and his innings pitched went down last year, which is never a good sign for a pitcher of his age. I think Milwaukee may be a little foolish to lean on Hoffman to close in 2009, but they don't really have any better options, They might be best suited to just signing Hoffman and then focusing on their rotation, which could really use another arm to help Yovani Gallardo and Manny Parra out next year.
