Hoffman to the Brewers

Trevor Hoffman and his Major League Baseball record 554 saves signed with the Brew Crew. Hoffman base salary for 2009 will be 6 mil with the chance for an extra 1.5 in incentives. Hoffman who spent his entire big league career with the Padres steps right into the closers role with the Brewers. Milwaukee desperately needed someone to close games. Their current bullpen features David Riske, Todd Coffey and Jorge Julio. Their closer of a year ago Salomon Torres retired after the season. Alot of experts have said that Hoffman has lost something off his fastball which makes the separation between his heater and his change less. While that might be true alot of his numbers last year were quite good. He was 30/34 in save opportunities, his K/BB ratio was the best since 2004 and his WHIP was only slightly over 1. The problem Hoffman faced was the long ball. He gave up 8 dingers in only 45 innings. If he can get back to average levels he should do a nice job for Milwaukee. While thinking about Hoffman I know alot of people are probably complaining about the lack of loyalty shown by the Padres. And for that matter the Braves with John Smoltz. Loyalty is a two way street and for the most part baseball in 2009 has very little loyalty on either side. In the old days of the reserve clause teams had all the power over players so the Padres could have paid Hoffman essentially what they wanted. But with the advent of free agency both players and teams show little loyalty towards each other. The Pads offered Hoffman 4 mil to come back. If playing in San Diego was that important to him he could have come back. I know I could live on 4 million dollars this year. But by the same token if he could make more money elsewhere, why not? This is further proof, not that we need it that baseball is a business. Frankly it always was. So lets not vilify either teams or players for situations like Trevor Hoffman and John Smoltz.