Two and a half weeks ago, and mere moments after the Brewers won their first World Series in franchise history, Milwaukee first baseman and NLCS MVP Jake Bauers told Pat Murphy, "You ain't getting rid of me that easy." Fast forward 17 days, and Bauers is already gone, but Brewers fans can't really blame him for that, either.
Bauers is a 31-year-old journeyman who, before Milwaukee, played with four different franchises in six years and repeatedly fell out of the majors. His story has been told time and time again, but we'll give it one more go: Bauers was planning to retire, but his wife became pregnant, and Bauers returned to the MLB motivated by health insurance and providing for his family.
The baseline understanding of that anecdote Brewers fans have heard dozens of times by now is why Milwaukee cannot be mad at Bauers for walking away. He just signed a four-year, $58 million contract with the Boston Red Sox, which is more than six times his entire career earnings of $9.43 million.
While his reported qualifying offer of a one-year, $23.15 million deal had a significantly higher AAV, the extended years and guaranteed money simply couldn't be denied for a player who's lucky to be in this position coming off his age-31 season.
Milwaukee will always love Jake Bauers, but the Brewers were wise not to match Boston's offer.
For as important as he was to the Brewers' success this year, leading the team with 26 regular-season home runs and 94 walks, he's probably not worth the price tag the Red Sox were willing to pay. It's hard to imagine him continuing to improve at this stage of his career, and much of his success was predicated on the system instilled by now 3x NL Manager of the Year, Pat Murphy.
Instead, Milwaukee will use the offseason to survey its options at first base, including a potential promotion for Andrew Vaughn or even No. 5 prospect and minor-league home run masher, Andrew Fischer. Similarly, they could chase a lower-cost option in free agency, like Josh Bell, Paul Goldschmidt, or Ty France. Regardless, it's expected that Milwaukee will receive a compensatory draft pick to ease the burden of Bauers' departure.
It would be exciting to see the Brewers take a more aggressive approach to their financials now that they're a World Series champion organization. This was the first test of that notion, but the outcome doesn't mean hope is lost. Milwaukee could be trying to keep long-term money off the books so they can afford to maintain some of their other veteran stars, like catcher William Contreras, who's in the last year of his deal, or more than a dozen more players going into arbitration after next season.
Bauers will be treated like a hero when he returns to Milwaukee as a member of the Red Sox, but that doesn't mean they were unwise to let him walk. This is an unfortunate part of the game, yet there's no reason to panic, unless it becomes a larger trend with this World Series roster moving forward.
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