Milwaukee Brewers’ owner Mark Attansio acknowledges that his team needs help in the starting pitching department, and Tom Haudricout of the Journal Sentinel says he’s determined to fix it by Opening Day 2011.

“We know we’ve got a problem, which is starting pitching,” Attanasio said. “We, as an organization, need to face that reality and address it, as opposed to shrink from it or excuse it.

“Our offense is so good, if we were just average in pitching, we’d be a contender. We’re near the bottom of the league in almost every pitching category.

The team tried to address it before the July 31st trading deadline this year, when Corey Hart was almost traded to the San Francisco Giants for Jonathan Sanchez and/or Madison Bumgarner. The deal never happened, but the two teams were believed to be negotiating for some time.

The team does not have any pitching prospects that will hit the big leagues any time soon, so a trade may be the ultimate answer.

“It’s pretty obvious we have some holes in our starting pitching and we don’t have anybody coming up,” Attanasio said. “I think free agency is not the perfect answer. That leaves the potential to trade one of our position players for pitching.

The biggest trading chip the Brewers have is first baseman Prince Fielder. However, the market for the power hitting first baseman may not be as strong as the Brewers are hoping. There will be a surplus of free agent first baseman come this winter, so the team may be better off waiting until next July to move him. Should the Brewers find someway to squeeze out the money, they could go for the likes of Ted Lilly, Kevin Millwood or Bronson Arroyo. Somebody like Cliff Lee could change the franchise around, but it’s unlikely the team will want to go to a bidding war for the biggest free agent of the winter.