What's not to love about free agent season? Fans of MLB teams like the Milwaukee Brewers get to try and wonder which players might end up being signed by their favorite team. It can be almost as fun as watching the games themselves.
And with free agent season comes free agent predictions. Plenty of MLB sites around the internet try to predict where some of the top free agents will land. One of those pieces comes from the writers over at MLB Trade Rumors.
The site has once again compiled a list of their top 50 MLB free agents for the 2023 season. And like last season, a few of their writers have predicted three free agents who they think the Brewers will bring in to help start up another playoff streak next season.
What type of players are the Crew predicted to sign? Some position players to give the offense some more consistency? Some needed depth for the starting rotation or the bullpen? Let's find out.
Here are three free agents that MLB Trade Rumors predicts the Brewers will sign for the 2023 season.
1. C Christian Vazquez
The Brewers face an offseason of potential turnover at the catcher position. For starters, Omar Narvaez, the team's primary catcher for the last three seasons became a free agent when the offseason began and there are no indications yet that the team plans a reunion with him.
Milwaukee still has their other main catcher from last season, Victor Caratini, but there is no guarantee that he will be tendered a contract for 2023 based on a subpar offensive performance last season.
And the other three catchers on the 40-man roster are prospect Mario Feliciano, Alex Jackson, and the recently re-acquired Payton Henry. Those three have a combined 89 games of major league experience between them.
Thus, Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors predicts that the Brewers will sign the newly crowned World Series champion Christian Vazquez of the Houston Astros, who is one of the top two catchers out on the free agent market this offseason.
Prior to his midseason trade to Houston, Vazquez had spent his entire MLB career, which began in 2012, with the Boston Red Sox. He has a career .261/.310/.386 slash line and has amassed 55 homers and 276 RBIs in 733 games. He has also caught 34% of base stealers for his career and has compiled a 7.0 total bWAR.
Vazquez is a good defender who provides enough on offense to be the type of catcher that Milwaukee tends to like. At a projected $27MM over three years, it could be a worthwhile price to pay for a more proven catcher than the team has had in a while.