Our fifth Financial Report is dedicated to the NL Central Champions Milwaukee Brewers. A team that desperately tried to compete this season before their biggest star Prince Fielder hit free agency.

In 2011 the Brewers won 96 regular season games, or 47 above the 49 games won line. They paid $85,497,333 in total salary breaking down their expenses to $1,819,092.19 per win.

Their top five paid players were:

– Prince Fielder ($15,500,000): Fielder hit .299/.415/.566 with 38 HR’s, 120 RBI’s, 95 runs and a .981 OPS. Fielder earned $407,894.74 for every home run he hit or $129,166.67 for every RBI he earned, or $163,157.89 for every run he scored, or $54,006.97 for every time he got on base.

– Zack Greinke ($13,500,000): Greinke went 16-6 with a 3.83 ERA with 201 SO in 171.2 innings. He made $843,750 for every game he won or $67,164.18 for every batter he struck out, or $482,142.86 for every game he started (28).

– Randy Wolf ($9,500,00): Wolf went 13-10 with a 3.69 ERA and 134 strikeouts in 212.1 innings. He earned $730,769.23 for every win, or $70,895.52 for every strikeout, or $278,878.79 for every game started (33).

– Corey Hart ($6,833,333): Hart hit .285/.356/.510 with 26 HR’s, 63 RBI’s, 80 runs and a .866 OPS. Hart made $262,820.5 for every home run he hit, or $108,465.60 for every RBI he earned, or $85,416.66 for every run he scored, or $35,042.73 for every time he got on base.

– Rickie Weeks ($4,500,000): Weeks hit .269/.350/.468 with 20 HR’s, 49 RBI’s, 77 runs and a .818 OPS. He earned $225,000 for every home run, $91,836.73 for every run batted in, or $58,441.56 for every run he scored, or $25,000 for every time he got on base.

The Brewers had a .325 OBP as a team and a .425 of SLG percentage. They scored a total runs of 721 which breaks down their expenses to $118,581.60 per run.

The Brewers began 2011 by trading for Greinke and Shaun Marcum thus bolstering the top of their starting rotation and getting a chance to compete in the NL Central. Their top paid player, Fielder, had an OBP over .400 for the third consecutive season, and walked over 100 times for a third consecutive season as well. The other two position players in the top five paid players were Weeks and Hart. Both of them had an OBP above .350 and an OPS over .800.

As the team with the 17th highest payroll we can say that they have been the most effective team thus far out of the first five teams evaluated even though they are the ones that scored the fewer runs. Unfortunately for them, it appears that their offense relies a lot on Fielder. With Fielder probably moving on, you start to wonder if they will have the same shot at competing this season.

In my opinion, the Brewers’ offense relies more on Fielder more than the Cardinals’ offense does in Albert Pujols. For 2012, the Brewers also have another payroll problem. They will have to pay Francisco Rodriguez about $14 million for being the team’s setup man, thus putting him in the team’s top five players for 2012.

The Brewers probably offered Rodriguez arbitration to get a compensation pick if he signed elsewhere, but with the closer market shrinking he decided to accept the arbitration offer and come back with the team for 2012. Although last week, we learned that there are teams interested in trading for Rodriguez.

For 2012, the team also picked up Aramis Ramirez and Alex Gonzalez in free agency. The first one will try to fill some of the void left by Fielder’s imminent departure, and the latter will be a defensive, and probably offensive improvement over Yunieski Betancourt.

Image by Rich Anderson under the Creative Commons License.