Brewers Lose Mike Moustakas In Free Agency To The Reds

The Milwaukee Brewers have found out the fate of their top remaining free agent, and he’s on the move as well.

Mike Moustakas finally got the long-term deal he’s been looking for since 2017. Unfortunately for the Milwaukee Brewers, that deal was given to him by the Cincinnati Reds.

According to Jeff Passan and Jon Heyman, the Reds signed Moustakas to a four year contract on Monday afternoon.

What was the contract?

It was a huge deal for Moustakas, and the Reds are finally spending some money and are getting serious about winning in 2020 and beyond.

That is a lot of money and it’s everything that Moose deserves. However, by looking at that contract, it’s pretty clear why the Brewers were not the team that ended up with him.

What do the Brewers do now?

It’s very interesting that this deal came down on the same day as the non-tender deadline with the Brewers facing a decision on what to do with Travis Shaw.

GM David Stearns likely already had a pretty good idea of where Moustakas’ market was at heading into today and knew he wasn’t going to be returning to Milwaukee. This makes the return of Travis Shaw a lot clearer.

Frankly, it’ll be an upset at this point if the Brewers don’t tender Shaw a contract. They have no other internal options for third base and the only starting quality options at third base on the free agent market are going to be more expensive than Moose was. Other third baseman on the market are more likely to be platoon options or bench options than they are regular everyday starters.

The Crew’s three top free agents this offseason; Moustakas, Yasmani Grandal, and Drew Pomeranz, all found four year contracts with other teams this winter, and all signed before the Winter Meetings. The length of the contracts and relative earliness of the signings are surprising, but losing all three isn’t necessarily a surprise.

While fans had hope the Brewers could retain at least one member of that group, that ship has sailed. Now we’ll see Moustakas 19 times a year for the next four years.

It’s looking like Travis Shaw will be the starting third baseman next season, but Stearns could pull off another surprise and cut Shaw loose. I’m not expecting that to happen, but anything is possible at this point. We’ll find out by the deadline tonight.

With Moose, Grandal, and Pomeranz all gone, the Brewers are going to have a bunch of holes to fill on their 2020 roster. While there’s plenty of time to do so, the pressure is on as things are getting moving pretty quickly this offseason.