Brewers Keep Spending, Add LaTroy Hawkins

It's been a very busy day for the Milwaukee Brewers .

Earlier today they landed LHP Randy Wolf and now they have inked their second pitcher of the day.

According to FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal , the Brewers have signed RHP LaTroy Hawkins to a two-year contract. The deal is for $7.5 million for the two years.

Though I am surprised Hawkins got a two-year deal and $7.5 million, this is another good signing by the Brewers.

Hawkins is the classic pitcher, who can’t pitch in the American League to save his life, but finds great success in the National League. All you need to do for proof of that is check out his numbers pitching in both leagues.

Here are Hawkins’ splits between the AL and NL

AL: 5.04 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 10.5 H/9, 3.2 BB/9, 5.7 K’s/9

NL: 2.75 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 8.2 H/9, 2.4 BB/9, 6.8 K’s/9

As you can see, Hawkins is a very solid relief pitcher in the National League. There is nothing to suggest that Hawkins won’t continue his success with the Brewers.

Hawkins had great success with the Houston Astros over the past year-and-a-half and he should know the batters of the NL Central division quite well.

Did the Brewers overpay for Hawkins? Maybe, but he did make $3.5 million with the Astros in 2009, so $7.5 million for two years is not that outrageous.

But he should give the Brewers a nice bridge to current closer Trevor Hoffman and sometimes you have to overpay for something you want. In less than three hours, the Brewers have upgraded their bullpen and their starting rotation.

The team with the smallest market in baseball is making some moves. I wish more teams had the mentality that the Brewers have.

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