Milwaukee Brewers: Does adding Yasmani Grandal make them NL favorites?

The Milwaukee Brewers make a big upgrade at the catcher position by signing Yasmani Grandal to a one-year deal

In sports, when your team is close, sometimes you need to make that one bold move to try and push your club over the top. The Milwaukee Brewers are a team that isn’t afraid to push their chips to the middle of the table when they are close. They missed the World Series by one game last season, losing Game seven of the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now, they have the Dodger catcher.

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From the catcher position last year, the Dodgers were third in homers, 11th in RBI, third in slugging and WAR. The Brewers were 23rd in homers, 29th in RBI, 21st in slugging and 20th in WAR. All of those numbers are sure to go up with Grandal behind the dish.

The Milwaukee Brewers will add Grandal’s bat to a lineup with NL MVP Christian Yelich, Jesus Aguilar, Ryan Braun, Travis Shaw and Lorenzo Cain.

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Having that kind of production from behind the plate is such a bonus on a team that already has so much offensive firepower already.

The Milwaukee Brewers were able to ride their offense and their bullpen to a division title and almost a pennant. If any of their young pitchers can step up in the rotation, which the addition of Grandal behind the plate can aid in that, they could be even better in 2019.

Yes, Grandal struggled in the postseason and has in back to back years, but that’s a problem the Milwaukee Brewers will gladly deal with when they cross that bridge. Their chances of going back there just improved by adding one of the best two-way catchers in the sport.

The fact that the Milwaukee Brewers just got stronger at one of their biggest weaknesses and took that player from the reigning NL champs, may make them the NL favorite in 2019.