Eric Gagne had few ups and many downs last season. Those downs were magnified by his mammoth contract. By signing a minuscule deal (in comparison) for 2009, he has a great chance to come in and provide depth to the bullpen with far less pressure on him than he had in 2008. Depth in the bullpen is a great problem to have, and with the acquisitions of Jorge Julio, Chase Wright, Trevor Hoffman, and now the return of Gagne, the Brewers have, arguably, better depth this season than they did in 2008. As a matter of fact, there may be too many arms out there and the Brewers may be forced to release a guy like Todd Coffey if they want to keep Rule 5 pick Eduardo Morlan.

Back to the Gagne signing, the original reason for this post, I think it is a no lose move. If he fails, we got him on the cheap and can discard of him without major repercussions. If he succeeds, he can redeem himself for the downs of 2008 and again, we got him on the cheap. By the way, to make last year’s mega contract feel a little better, I added 2008 and 2009 together and divided by two. Last season does not seem as bad after doing that!

It looks like over 150 games will be broadcast this season between Fox Sports Wisconsin, ESPN, and the Fox mothership. If I recall correctly, Brian Anderson said last season that most, if not all, of the games on FSW would be in glorious high definition. We know the ESPN and Fox games will be, but as a HD TV owner (and self proclaimed “HD Snob”) anything less than 90% of the remaining games being in HD is unacceptable. There are fewer things that look better in HD than Brewers baseball games (really any baseball game, but I am a tad biased).

Another tasty morsel of information gleened from the Brewers 2009 broadcast schedule was the fact that they are scheduled for two ESPN Sunday Night Baseball games. The first of the two is the first Sunday game at home against the Cubs. I believe this marks the first time in 12 seasons that the Brewers have had a game on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball… back when they played Hideki Irabu and the New York Yankees at County Stadium. Why do I remember that so clearly? Well, I was a 18 year old usher in the rowdy left field bleachers and witnessed Irabu’s post game presser after getting smacked around by Dave Nilsson all night long (box score).

According to jsonline.com, Prince Fielder showed up to camp skinnier than he ended last season, which is a very good thing. Now maybe it will only take 10 seconds to get from home plate to first base rather than the 14.7 seconds he was timed at during the final week of the 2008 campaign. Rumor has it, he got skinny by increasing his cardio, but I would venture to guess that cutting his Twinkie consumption in half also played a major role.

Just a few quick things to catch you up on before we get started for the 2009 season:

1) I now have a son, Chase Joseph Dempsey, who was born on December 23, 2008.
2) I previously mentioned a weight loss program I was running at work last spring, well I started at 217 and now weight 170.
3) I attended game 3 of the NLDS. It was the greatest sports event I have ever been to.

I guess other than those three life changing items, everything else is pretty much the same with me!

After an absence from MLBLogs for an extended amount of time, I am back and will update the site on an “as often as I am able to” basis. I will reintroduce myself to the masses in the next couple days and get the ball rolling again on the blog in preparation for the 2009 season. I am excited to be back and hope that readers will be excited by what I have to say about the Milwaukee Brewers, Major League Baseball, and life in general.