SWING FOR THE FENCES: Milwaukee Brewers Must ADD Kyle Schwarber – Here’s the Power Impact

SWING FOR THE FENCES: Milwaukee Brewers Must ADD Kyle Schwarber – Here’s the Power Impact

The Milwaukee Brewers are in need of some power in the middle part of that lineup. One player that they might not want to spend money on, but I think they should. We’ll tell you about that next here on Locked On Brewer. You are Locked On Brewers, your daily Milwaukee Brewers podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hey everybody, I’m Chuck Freeman. Welcome to Locked On Brewers, part of the Locked On podcast network. We are your team every day. Now the number one sports podcast network in the world, longtime sports cer here with Locked On Brewers uh for the last several years. Brewers have never not won a division title since your boy has been the host of Locked on Brewers. And again, longtime sports cer here in the state of Wisconsin. Brewers need some power. No question about that. Talk about some names in free agency, including one who I think they should go after, Devin Williams to Milwaukee. Not going to happen, thank goodness. Christian Yelled, is he on the move? I’ll tell you why it’s not likely. All right. The baseball winter meetings are starting next week in Orlando. Now, little history here. Baseball winter meetings used to be the time when all the owners and the general managers and the managers would go down to a specific warm weather spot, whether it’s Arizona, Florida, or whatever, and they would get together and they would just talk trade. You’d see these guys in bars and restaurants and the stories where trades were consummated. Unbelievable. You know, just like two guys, two general managers meeting up in a in a lobby of a hotel and pulling off a monster trade. Not saying some of that doesn’t happen now because it does. But baseball winners meetings were the kickoff of the 2026, well, in this case would be the kickoff of the 2026 season. in past years, the kickoff of the next season where it would just get the ball rolling on trades, free agent signings and whatever, agents down there, people looking for jobs down there. Baseball winter meetings were a huge deal. And then came the ‘9s and and began to lessen up a little bit. Uh people didn’t take the baseball winter meetings so seriously because not a lot of moves were made down there. people stopped talking about baseball winter meetings because there was not much going on down there. But it’s kind of been reborn a little bit, right? If nothing else, it helps set the table for what happens in the coming weeks after that. And in this case, last year with the Milwaukee Brewers, it did. Uh, the Brewers obviously met with the Yankees down there last year at spring training and they ended up coming together on a deal that happened a week later, the Devin Williams deal where the Brewers got Cortez and Durban for Williams and at the time didn’t sound all that fantastic. It turned out to be a really good deal for the Milwaukee Brewers, not so much for the New York Yankees. We’ll get to some of that coming up here in a little bit. So, what are the Brewers looking forward to right now as they head down next week to the warmth of Orlando? Well, most of the season, people complain about the Milwaukee Brewers, the experts, why they can’t do this, why they can’t do that, because of the power numbers. Now, the Brewers had Reese Hoskins in the middle of this lineup. And when they signed him a couple of years ago, I really thought he was the guy who was going to provide them 35 and I kid you not, 40 home runs a season. I thought Ree was going to bounce back and be that kind of guy. Two years, 34 million. And the Brewers certainly look at that type of guy with him. Never reached 30 home runs, some injuries and all that. Eventually, now the Brewers will say, “Oh, yeah, his two years here, it worked out greatly, man. It he was fantastic while he was here. He’s a really good player.” Well, it didn’t work out as well as they hoped because even at that price, they couldn’t keep him on the postseason roster. uh at two years 34 million. You think that’s a guy who’s going to make their postseason roster for sure. Got hurt, injured the hand. Andrew Vaughn came up and never relinquished that spot. Now Vaughn was hitting home runs left and right when he first got up here, but then uh he had not hit a home run from August 15th until the postseason. That’s a long stretch. Not saying he wasn’t productive. numbers did come down a little bit, but he was not, you know, this 30 home run type guy from August 15th on. Still earned enough to obviously be the everyday first baseman. Kind of split toward the end with Jake Powers, but between the two of them, the Brewers do need some more power. And right now, it looks like it’s going to be a platoon at first base going into next year, but the Brewers need to get themselves another power spot in this lineup. Uh Adam McKelie put out these numbers which I thought were fascinating. 84% of the playoff teams that win a game, their team out homers the other team. Regular season, 77% of the time in the regular season, a team that out homers the other team wins the game. Of course, there’s some exceptions where a team doesn’t get the job done with a home run bet still wins the game. Now, the Brewers, I thought they say, “Well, this team couldn’t do anything without power.” And I preached during the season, I thought that was a little bit overblown a little bit, right? That they didn’t have enough power on this team, that they didn’t have enough big bats. They were still getting it done, right? The Woodpecker approach, which I know died in Los Angeles, uh, in all four of those games, right? Um, although Surio did hit a leadoff home run in one of those games, game two, thought, “All right, here we go.” But I thought at times they did show some power and they did did show some muscle on this team, but apparently not enough. and maybe they need another do need another bat in this lineup, a power hitting uh guy. Now, when I’m looking at the free agents, obviously, when we look at the top guys in the market, we write all these guys off, but there’s one guy who I feel like the Brewers should give the money to. Even though they have a DH already, and I think going into the season, we’ll talk about this a little later on, Christian Yelich right now is your everyday DH. But if your boy Freeman was running the team, more or less owning the team, I’d have no problem. 5 years, 132 million for Kyle Schwarber. He’s the guy you should your eyes should light up and this guy would light up this team. Hit the 56 homers with the Phillies last year. Doesn’t sound like he’s resigning there. Who knows? He’s going to turn 33 in March. They always say a power hitter is in the prime of his home run years between the ages of uh 28 and 32. Uh, but I think Kyle still’s got some home run bat to him now. Five years, maybe that final year by the time he gets 38, who knows at that point. But I feel if you sign Kyle Schwarber, and I know I’m thinking out of the box a little bit on this, you put him at the everyday DH and the big fella just does his stuff, right? Put him at the everyday DH and let the big fella do his things. And I know we have already Christian Yelich at the D8 spot, but if you sign Kyle Schwarber, I forget all about Christian Yelich, sadly to say, because Kyle Schwarber is going to help me win a lot of ball games, I feel, especially at Anam Field, what that guy could do at that place. We’ve seen him what he did at Anaman Field when he played the Cubs at Anam Field, right? That guy was amazing. Um, so that porch out in right field, Cal Schwarber would beating that, be beating up on that porch in right field, tattooing that porch. Batting practice, regular season games, you name it. So 5 years, 132 million. That’s one projection. I’ve seen 430 million, which is a little bit more to my liking. But I think Kyle Schwarber would be perfect for the Milwaukee Brewers. Perfect left-hand stick. put that big fell in the lineup every day and let him just bash. Now, when you’re saying five years, 132 million, well, how come the Cincinnati Reds are talking about this guy? Not publicly, but there’s word is that the Reds are very interested in him. I don’t want him to go to the Reds. I want the guy to go to the Milwaukee Brewers. Why can’t we have him? They’re telling me the Reds can afford Kyle Schwarber, but the Milwaukee Brewers can’t. I don’t want to hear that. We need to get serious about this. And I do feel spending on occasion, breaking the bank, so to speak, for a guy like this would be something I would do. Wouldn’t spend it on a pitcher. Wouldn’t give 7 years, $210 million to a pitcher of any caliber. No, Siri. But Kyle Schwarber, you’re telling me right now I could have that guy five years, $132 million sold. Sorry, Cincinnati Reds. He’s coming to the Milwaukee Brewers. Would love to have him here. Couple other names, the power bats in the free agent market. Again, I’m kind of spitballing here, but I’m telling you, you want to be serious, you want to show that you mean some business, Kyle Schwarber is the guy you go after. Kyle Schwarber is the guy you go after. Pete Alonzo, obviously, I would love to have him. Pete Schwarber to me or Pete Alonzo to me was the lone bright spot to me on that Mets team last year. That was a major disappointment. Now, I don’t know if he’s coming back to the Mets. I didn’t think he was coming back last year or the year before, but he’s he’s we’ll see. But I think Pete Lonzo would be the guy. Yeah, if I had Pete Lonzo on this team, I’d forget all about Andrew Vaughn and Jake Powers, but that’s never going to happen. But Pete Alonzo is another big bat. He’s not coming here. Obviously, there’s a couple other names out there. We talked about Suarez at Nauseium at the trading deadline and a lot of people were upset when Suarez didn’t come here. Then he went to Seattle and he didn’t do so well, right? He didn’t do so well. Well, when I see these numbers on Suarez, are you kidding me? 30 million for Suarez? No way. That price came down considerably. Yes, the Suarez 3 years 90 million and it’s not going to be a big contract for him cuz he’s in his mid30s, but three years 90 million. No, but I’d kick the tires if I get could get that guy at a cheaper price. Who knows? Maybe the price would come down. But the one caveat on that is it did scare me a little bit on him when he didn’t produce in Seattle. did scare me a little bit. Another power name out there, Rowdy Tles. Nope. Not a chance. Not a chance. We all loved our rowdy to TLZ when he was here. Love the power ball or the not the power ball. The bobbleheads. Liked when he hit the power ball. Liked the Tles bobblehead. I got that somewhere here. But no, we don’t need him. So, those are some of the top power bats in the free agent market. Kyle Schwarber. My mouth is foaming when I think of the possibilities of having that guy in the lineup. All right. MLB.com put on an article about one free agent every team should sign. On the same day, Devin Williams signed with a different team. Thank goodness that happened. We didn’t need to go on that road. We’ll talk about that next here on Lockdown Brewers. Lockdown Brewers, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day. Good to have you along here on Lockdown Brewers. Proud host of Lockdown Brewers. You get us on Google, Spotify, Apple, wherever you download your audio podcast. We’re the number one audio podcast out there because of you great brewers fans out there. And of course, you get us on YouTube as well. Search Lockdown Brewers on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell. That alert you every time we drop an episode here on Lockdown Brewers. Brought to you by FanDuel, America’s number one sports book. NFL season is winding down here. Being on your couch in a sports bar, wherever you’re watching your games, you know, you like to place live bets on FanDuel, especially when that heavy favorite gets down. Live betting, I’m telling you, on FanDuel, it is the best I have seen. Live betting is the the best. When that game shifts to the underdog and you really like a favorite, man, you got to run. You got to run. I had last Sunday the Buffalo Bills. I love the Bills minus the three to start. They got down early. Pittsburgh put an early field goal on the board. Man, I grabbed I grabbed Buffalo and ran with it and they went on to get the victory. So, right now, go to FanDuel.com, place your live bets in the NFL or any sports as well. FanDuel, the game move fast moves fast and so can you. With FanDuel, you can place your bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum, every swing, every highlight moment. FanDuel. FanDuel, number one sports book out there for a reason. Chuck Freeman here on Lockdown Brewers, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day. Good to be back in the Lockdown Brewer Studios. Didn’t drop an episode on Monday. They’re building houses in my neighborhood. They are building houses in my neighborhood. And once in a while, and this has happened twice, the internet connection, the whoever is doing the digging here is tripping up a cord and everybody in the neighborhood doesn’t have an internet. So late last night, I’m I’m doing my podcast and all of a sudden blank, everything shuts off and that’s a bad feeling. It didn’t come on until 10:00 this morning. Took them 12 hours to fix the internet. That’s twice that’s happened to me now in the last three weeks. Right in the middle of an episode. Not happy about it. All right. The news did come down. Devin Williams. Now, first of all, on MLB.com, there was an article on there every free agent, one free agent every team should should um approach. And for the Brewers, and this was not written by Adam Malli, it said Devin Williams. The Brewers should approach Devin Williams because Devin could come here on a one-year deal on a prove it deal. I thought, man, we don’t need Devin. Devin doesn’t need us. Think Deon has a little chip on his shoulder for the Milwaukee Brewer organization on a few things in the past, but Devin doesn’t want to come here. And quite frankly, I don’t want him here on a proven deal. I don’t want I we don’t need we got enough guys out of that bullpen. No. And Devin Williams was a disaster last year with the Yankees. So when he signed with the Mets last night, three years 50 million, I was like, “Yep, the first bonehead move of the season comes from, you guessed it, the New York Mets, David Sterns, who likes to do these things.” And he of course de you know David Sterns Devin Williams couldn’t help himself. Three years 50 million they will be regretting that one as well. I like Diaz their closer. I don’t know why they didn’t re up with him. I like him better than Williams. But Devin Williams three years 15 million. My goodness. That saved the Milwaukee Brewers right there. did not need to have Devin Williams on this team as a prove it deal, right? Not at all. Uh Devin needs to go somewhere else. And I’m telling you right now, the New York Mets, who seem to get all the hand-me-downs from the New York Yankees these days, team players the Yankees don’t want, the Mets are signing and jumping, foaming at the mouth, signing guys like Devin Williams in in no world for the Brewers. Even if Devin was here last year or even if he would have been a free agent at the end of two seasons ago, would they ever would they ever consider giving a closer three years 50 million? They will never ever do that on a closer and I’m with them on that. I would never overpay that type of money for a closer there was talk of Devin could get five years 100 million. I was hoping the Dodgers would bite on that but apparently nobody wanted to go five years. They settled on three years at 50 million. If the Brewers were to go after Schwarber, they would have to trade Christian Yelich. Christian Yelich is 34 years old now and he’s passed his prime and he had a nice season for the Milwaukee Brewers and at one point I thought he had been a candidate for comeback player of the year. Um, he faltered miserably in the postseason. If I could, I would trade him in a heartbeat. I think the wise thing to do on business would be to trade Christian Yelich. I think absolutely you have to trade Christian Yelich. Will the Brewers do it? Absolutely. They would never do that. Matt Arnold may want to do it, but the man upstairs in the corner office, Mark Atonasio, would never allow that to happen. And any trades, any significant moves the Brewers make, they have to run it by Maranasio, as we all know. And there’s a couple of guys in the Brewers, the Brewers have had over the years who have been special players for Mark Atonio. Ryan Brawn is one and obviously Aanasio felt hurt after what happened back in 2013. Well, it started in 2011, but 2013. Uh, the news broke 2011. And Christian Yelich, even though he has fallen off on production and he did bounce back and had a nice year this past year, never would Mark Antinasio consider trading Christian Yelich. That is his guy and he’s not traded him. It would be smart for the Milwaukee Brewers to do so. Yelich should not play any outfield next year. He’s going to be on this team. It should be the everyday DH. But if the Brewers are doing business properly, and not saying that they don’t, but Yelled would be gone. You would try to package Yelich in a deal. I’d go out and sign myself Schwarber, but Yelich played outfield in a handful of spots this year, but Yelich should not be on the team next year. Absolutely not. Uh I’m questioning whether or not he’ll have next year. I was disappointed in this postseason. It was a very, very weak postseason once again for Yellish, but this one kind of bothered me because he was so great during the regular season and we saw none of it in the postseason. And he was a big reason why they didn’t win win 97 games. And maybe you could put him on the trade market and somebody would look at him and say, “Oh, we got to have him. We’ll have his veteran. We’ll have that veteran on our team. He could be the final spot. We put him at the DH spot. So, if I could trade Christian and unload that contract, the remaining with whatever it is on that contract, he’s making about 25 million a year. And plus, you’d probably have to pick in some money, right? Because he’s going to be making some money after he retires as well. That contract is deferred for a while. So, but yeah, Christian Yelich, 34 years old, they’re not getting their bang for that contract. And uh I’m worried what’s going to happen in years to come with Christian Yelich as he hits to his mid30s, but nothing more than a DH right now. All right, the Milwaukee Brewers in Major League Baseball a year from now going to be faced with some tough decisions. Talk about that coming up next here on Lockdown Brewers. Lockdown Brewers brought to you in part by Game Time. You want to get concert tickets, you want to get Bucks tickets, maybe you want to go to the Packers and Bears coming up on Sunday, reach out to the Game Time app. It is so clutch. And I’m telling you, those ticket prices once you get inside of two hours, three hours before the event, they start they start to drop like a stone. Pull up the app, wonderful layout. The seat view feature is a game changer. You can see any seat you want, hit it, and it’ll give you the view of the field. the fees, all the prices, the fees upfront, which I love. So, you only get no surprises at the end. Not like you keep clicking and that price keeps going up from 50 to 75 to 100. No, you’re not going to get that. You’re going to get all the fees up front. You get alerts for teams and matches. Make it easy to grab tickets the moment they drop instead of missing out. Man, Game Time’s got it all figured out. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets or the World Cup concert, whatever. Never miss an event with Game Time. Download the Game Time app. Create an account right now. Use the promo code locked on MLB and you’ll get 20 bucks off your first purchase. Again, download the app. Make an account. Use the promo code locked on MLB. $70 worth of tickets. You’ll get them for $50. Swipe tap ticket. Go to Game Time now and get your tickets right now. Game time. Game time and and against. It’s just on sporting events, concert tickets, comedy, you name it. It’s all there with Game Time. Thanks for making us your first listen to every day here on Lockdown Brewers, part of Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day. Yes. Coming up ahead, the 20 27 lockout. There’s a possibility that a week from yesterday, there could be a lockout in Major League Baseball. Could be a lockout. It could be a reality. And I think that’s why you’ll see a soft off season here for all major league teams. There’s I think there’s the possibility of getting a lockout. Now, I remember in 1994 the owners really stood their ground, namely Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Cely, who was also the commissioner, stood his ground on the salary cap. Needed a salary cap. Well, he canceled the World Series. Steeling took most of the blame for that with the fans. A lot of fans nationally did not want that. And I think it lost a lot of fans when there was a lockout. They can’t have another lockout. They need a salary cap. Okay? And of course, I’m a proponent of it because I’m from a small market team covering the Milwaukee Brewers. They do need a salary cap in Major League Baseball, right? They need they need it. It’s worked in the NBA. It’s why the Milwaukee Bucks can get a Jiannis on a Doopo. It’s worked in uh the NFL, why they can keep an Aaron Rogers or keep a a Jordan Love, players like that, right? Everybody like if there wasn’t a salary cap in the NFL, the Green Bay Packers, who knows where they’d be at this point. And the Milwaukee Bucks, yeah, same thing. But there’s got to be one in Major League Baseball. And the argument that the players association is going to use here in the offce they, you know, get in the negotiations, look at the Milwaukee Brewers. They won 97 games without a salary cap. Why do we need a salary cap? And there was an article written going into this series against the Dodgers. I believe it was in ESPN that that series is going to be a factor as far as contract talks, labor talks, because if the Brewers could beat the Dodgers, that would give the players association a chip. Hey, look at the Brewers beat the big market Dodgers. Well, as a result, one thing good came out of it. The Dodgers sweeping the Brewers. It shows, yep, the big markets can keep going. And you know what? The Dodgers organization, they flaunted that. Dave Roberts, the manager, flaunted that. Mookie boy bets uh flaunted the fact that you know the big market team took down the small market team and you know every it’s everybody’s World Series. It’s everybody’s Super Bowl when they play us. Yes. Absolutely. Because you could spend spend spend and the Milwaukee Brewers can’t do the same thing. So I’m really concerned that a year from now we’re talking about a baseball lockout and baseball fans in 1994. It took him a long time to come back. Baseball was dead in this America in America 30 years ago. And then the home run race with Sosa and Maguire chasing the Maris record kind of brought fans back to baseball, right? Among other things. Steroid era happened and baseball home runs were going out of the ballpark. But baseball did not look like it was going to make a comeback. It eventually did and I feel like it’s made a comeback. I feel like baseball is on a high level right now. Certainly here in Wisconsin. Fans are both going to the ballpark watching this episodes. You know, there’s an interest in brewer. You know, of course, the Packers are always going to be number one in the state of Wisconsin. And the Bucks kind of, you know, are number two, even though the Bucks are struggling right now, but there is interest in the Milwaukee Brewers. And there’s interest in Major League Baseball all around. You look at the attendance figures all around baseball. People are going to games and but they can’t afford to have this lockout. But then again, baseball cannot continue to go in this direction of the Juan Stos getting 500 million and some of these teams like the Milwaukee Brewers and Kansas City Royals standing by and the Brewers having having to risk going out there and signing a Jackson Cheerio or if they wanted to sign a Miserowski, buying them arbitration, having to take risks that you don’t normally have to do but you have to do because you’re a smaller market. Shouldn’t be that way. So, I’m hoping that these labor talks get settled when they do take place because we do not need a lockout a year from now. All right, everybody. Thanks for making us your first listen to every day here on Lockdown Brewers. My name is Chuck Freeman, proud host of Lockdown Brewers, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day. [Music]

Milwaukee Brewers eye game-changing power addition: could Kyle Schwarber transform their lineup and playoff hopes? Amid free agency speculation, Chuck Freimund debates the merits of signing Schwarber to a lucrative multi-year deal, weighing the impact on Christian Yelich’s future as DH and pondering what a bold move would mean for Milwaukee’s postseason ambitions.

Key topics include the Brewers’ urgent need for home run hitters, the legacy of big-money contracts, Devin Williams’ surprising departure to the New York Mets, and looming MLB labor uncertainty. Chuck Freimund spotlights potential trade scenarios, the limitations of small-market payrolls, and the strategic crossroads facing Matt Arnold and Mark Attanasio. Will Milwaukee break tradition and spend big to challenge rivals like the Cincinnati Reds? Explore the critical decisions that could shape the Brewers’ quest for a division crown.

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