Brewers: 8 Free Agents Who Could Thrive at American Family Field

Major League Baseball is currently locked out which means teams cannot negotiate contracts with free agents, however once MLB and the Players Association come to terms on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, a free agency frenzy will begin.

The Milwaukee Brewers could use this urgency to grab an impact player or two on short term deals that they may not have been able to sway to Milwaukee had there been a full offseason of negotiations with other teams willing to pay more and give longer term contracts.

According to spotrac.com, the Milwaukee Brewers current payroll stands at $101,890,000, which is prior to setting salaries for arbitration-eligible players. The Brewers 40-man roster currently stands at 36 players, meaning the team will likely look to free agency to potentially fill some of those four open roster spots.

Which MLB free agents could do well with the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field?

Looking at players that are currently free agents, I looked at four statistics to help determine what players could potentially succeed at a hitter’s ballpark like American Family Field.

Using Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference, I looked at home run percentage, the number of plate appearances that result in home runs, hard hit percentage, the percent of balls in play with an exit velocity of 95 miles per hour or higher, slugging percentage, which gives greater weight to players who hit for extra bases and is calculated by total bases divided by at bats, and lastly wRC+ (weighted runs created plus), which takes into account things like what ballpark you play in.

Using these eight statistics I compiled a list of eight potential targets for the Milwaukee Brewers that could help their offense at American Family Field. Also, I took into account age, position and likely cost to determine the rankings for which I believe the Brewers should target these eight players.