This condensation of the Milwaukee Brewers' negotiations with Shaun Marcum, the less bombastic of their two starting-pitching acquisitions in 2011, is almost sad in the Brewers' attempts—or maybe the reporters' attempts—to keep what's obviously stopping them from offering Shaun Marcum a multi-year deal out of the lede. "We were told they just wanted to do a one-year deal," Marcum says; "Oh, no, man, we totally believe you're healthy, it's just—it's really our problem, and not yours," said the Brewers, noting that the two of them could still be friends, if that was cool, but it's just there's some stuff they're working through.
↵I don't normally cotton to using extremely small samples to make judgments about players, but Shaun Marcum's astonishing hittability late in the season leaves him with the worst bargaining position anyone has had since the codification of the "You break it, you buy it" rule.
↵The good news for Marcum is that, if he makes three or four starts in April while looking like the Shaun Marcum who stabilized the Brewers' rotation last spring, he might discover that the Brewers have found a newfound love for the long-term. They must have just totally lost your cell phone number or something, man, but it's no big deal because they have it now, you know?
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