Brewers Rumors: Crew Among Several Teams Pursuing Nelson Cruz

MLB free agency is open and the rumors are starting to fly hot and heavy. The Milwaukee Brewers enter the re-opened free agency still with a need to add more offense. The latest rumors have them trying to address it.

As part of the changes in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the National League is going to have the Designated Hitter in their lineups this season. That gives the Brewers another spot to add a hitter and not worry about taking playing time away from anyone on the roster already and really boost their offense.

According to reports, the Milwaukee Brewers are in hot pursuit of longtime DH Nelson Cruz in free agency.

Enrique Rojas from ESPN is reporting that there are at least eight teams that are interested in the services of Nelson Cruz, and the Brewers are one of them.

Granted, this is a lot of competition, but the Brewers stand a very strong chance here. They’ll have an open spot for him to DH regularly, American Family Field is well suited for Cruz’s strengths, and the Brewers were the organization he made his MLB debut with. It would be a nice full circle moment for the 41 year old Cruz.

Last season, between the Twins and the Rays, Cruz slugged 32 home runs while hitting .265 with an .832 OPS and 130 OPS+. Even into his 40s, Cruz has remained incredibly productive and it stands to reason he’ll be productive again in 2022.

Cruz has hit 30+ home runs in every season dating back to 2014, with the exception of the shortened 2020 season with only one-third of the games being played, and he still hit 16 homers that year.

This would be a huge bat for the Brewers to add to the lineup. They need more power and Cruz provides it with abundance. He’d be a perfect fit for the team as a veteran leader and of course those 30+ homers and 130 OPS+ help quite a bit too.

It’s likely that Cruz is looking at a one year deal and the old saying goes that there’s no such thing as a bad one year deal.

According to these reports, David Stearns is in pursuit of Cruz, which is exactly what we said he should do. Plenty of other teams are calling as well, but we’ll see what happens here.

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While there haven’t been a ton of signings since free agency opened back up, there’s been a lot of activity behind the scenes, which means the floodgates will be opening soon and the Brewers just might get their top DH target in Nelson Cruz.