A little over a year ago, the Milwaukee Brewers were desperate for bullpen help. They turned to Eric Gagne, hoping that the once dominant closer could nail down wins again and cement the back-end of their bullpen for a playoff run. He never found himself in Milwaukee and it didn't take long for him to lose his job to Salomon Torres, who did a nice job closing games out as the Brewers snuck into the wild-card spot before losing to the Phillies in the NLDS. Torres is retired now and with him, Brian Shouse and Guillermo Mota, two of the Brewers' more effective set-up men in 2008, are gone as well. They've signed an aging Trevor Hoffman to try and do what they hoped Gagne could do last year, but they still need more arms in the bullpen. And Tuesday, the Brewers turned to an unthinkable source to add those arms: they've re-signed Gagne himself to a minor league deal.
Now, I know this news makes most Brewer fans clench their teeth and rend their garments, but this really isn't a terrible idea. The problem the Brewers had with Gagne last year is that they were paying him $10 million, which meant that even if he was terrible, he was keeping his spot on the roster. This deal is almost certainly incentive-laden, assuming Gagne makes the team at all, which means there's no incentive for Milwaukee to keep him around if he stinks again.
I mean, he is still Eric Gagne and there's probably an effective reliever still in him somewhere. His diminishing strikeout totals, rising walk totals, and late-inning meltdowns that have grown more frequent beg to differ, but he's certainly still worth a non-roster invite to camp.
