The Brewers’ first base situation is unnecessary

It feels as if the Brewers lack confidence in Juan Francisco. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

Maybe it’s just me, but the fact that the first base scenario for the Milwaukee Brewers is being blown up so much is a tad ridiculous. In Milwaukee, the general way things go are from the inside, so very rarely do the Brewers pursue a major piece outside of the organization.

Why should first base be any different?

It just makes no sense, at least to me, for the Brewers to pursue guys like Ike Davis, Justin Smoak, Mitch Moreland and even more recently Michael Young. While I was less than thrilled with Juan Francisco‘s lack of production this past season, he’s still the option the Brewers can roll with from the inside.

Davis and Moreland are not any better than Francisco and Smoak is essentially the same player, just with more homers, but less power. It’s true that Francisco lacks in patience at the plate, which contributed to him striking out 35.8 percent of the time, but it’s something that he can work on during the remainder of the offseason. Young could be a nice touch though, but still unnecessary.

Francisco is not a long-term option and neither are the players that the Brewers are looking into. It just seems fruitless to try and trade for someone who may not even put up better numbers than what the team already has. Too many people relish in Davis’ 2011 where he .302, but soon forget the fact that it was only in 39 games.

Then they point to his 2012 where he smacked across 32 home runs. Okay, I’m still not impressed considering his average shrank to .222. In just this past season, Davis hit a measly .205 and was even demoted back to Triple-A at a point in the season. I don’t get the interest in him at all.

Honestly, it’s just rather silly all the first basemen Milwaukee seems to be interested in because they don’t exactly have the worst of options in Francisco. It also feels like everyone forgets about Hunter Morris, who is on the cusp of making his major league debut. General manager Doug Melvin even said he regretted not bringing Morris up in September, so clearly they want to work with him to eventually take over that role. Say what you want about Morris, but I have faith in him.

Nobody should expect Francisco to be the next coming of Joey Votto or Paul Goldschmidt and if you do, then I have some bad news for you. He’s just a plug-in option for now and replacing him with another player who is essentially going to give the team the same production makes no sense.

The point is, is that the Brewers’ pursuits of other first basemen are pointless. Stick with what you have and suck it up for awhile. Sure, Francisco may not be the first baseman everyone wanted in Corey Hart, but he can’t get any worse than this past season. Plus if the Brewers call-up Morris sometime in 2014, that’s only going to help him develop into a major league player.