Spring Training is underway and we’ll have actual boxscores to peruse come Wednesday! How sweet is that? With that in mind, we push forward with our Free Agency report. Miss the other sections of this near-legendary tome? No problem-o, dude. We got you covered:

American League Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII , IX and X.

National League Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII.

Milwaukee Brewers

After showing nice progress in 2007, the Milwaukee Brewers were one of the feel good stories of 2008, taking another significant leap forward en route to 90 wins, the NL Wild Card and the team’s first playoff appearance in 26 years.

Fueled by the NL’s second best pitching staff, which was bolstered by the mid-season acquisition of C.C. Sabathia (who was absolutely dominant in Sausage City) the Brewers spent most of the summer blazing towards the playoffs. Sure, a late season slump almost cost them that shot and it took a win on the final day of the season to wrap it up, but after an entire generation of Brewer fans had suffered through a postseason drought, no one was complaining. Yes, the Brewers were dispatched fairly easily in four games in the NLDS by the eventual World Series champion Phillies, but the message was sent that this team was no longer a doormat for the rest of the NL.

Unfortunately, the offseason took a big chunk of those good feelings away. Gone are twin aces Sabathia and Ben Sheets, replaced by Braden Looper. Uh, yeah.

Team owner Mark Attanasio believes that the team is tapped out salary wise after taking on the Sabathia contract and also adding Ray Durham in a mid-season deal and then enduring an expensive offseason that included new contracts for Prince Fielder (who has slimmed down, but has a fatter wallet thanks to a two-year, $18 million deal) and Corey Hart ($3.25 M), not to mention Looper, who could earn as much as $12.25 million over the next two years.

On the plus side financially, after wasting $10 million on Eric Gagne last season for a seriously ugly campaign, the Brew Crew was able to bring him back on a cheap, incentive-laden minor league contract for 2009. Of course, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of work before Gagne manages to earn himself another late-inning role as he’s fallen pretty low down the pecking order in the Milwaukee pen, assuming he even makes the team.

One wonders whether the Brewers (12th in hitting, but fifth in home runs last season) will have enough offense to withstand the weakening of their pitching staff this season. Third baseman Bill Hall, who has been sliding downhill for a couple of seasons now anyways, is dealing with a calf injury, and will get a late start on his spring. This does not bode well for a rebound. And while that may be addition by subtraction in some people’s minds, and perhaps serve only to expedite the dawn of the Mat Gamel era, the uber prospect is also hurting this spring with a shoulder issue. That leaves Mike Lamb as the main option at the hot corner for now. Yeah, I know…it’s hard not to wet yourself when you hear that.

Free Agents

The Brewers only had 10 free agents to deal with, but with four key hurlers included on this list, the team took a serious hit to its staff and will be very hard pressed to remain among the top pitching teams in the NL. Fortunately, the losses on offense were only to role players.

Russell Branyan, 3B: After starting the season in the minors and then getting hurt in August, Branyan didn’t see much big league action last season, but when he did play he actually put up a decent BA for once and showed enough to earn himself a contract from the Mariners. He’ll participate in what looks like a wide-open competition for the starting first base job in Seattle.

Craig Counsell, 3B: Counsell saw less action in 2008, but he knows how to get on base and has excellent strike zone judgment, two ingredients that led Milwaukee to re-sign him. It’s Counsell’s flexibility that makes him valuable, at least for a real baseball team. He actually proved useful when Rickie Weeks went down in June, and could get into the 3B mix this spring with all the injuries Milwaukee is dealing with. He’s no spring chicken, but Counsell proved he still has a bit of life left in him when used judiciously as a role player.

Ray Durham, 2B: Durham was enjoying a strong season with the Giants, doing a way better job of getting on base than he had in years. Traded to Milwaukee in July, he hit well for Milwaukee and continued to exhibit good patience. Although not a productive, full-time player any longer, Durham still has very good gap power and his recovery in OBP last season was really startling. He’s still a free agent, and KC is a possible suitor, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Durham had to settle for a minor league deal as no one is really desperate for keystone corner help right now.

Eric Gagne, RHP: Gagne was signed to take over at closer, but he was unable to stay healthy, was tremendously ineffective and ultimately proved that he wasn’t the answer, losing his job. As mentioned, Milwaukee has brought him back for much less money and he’ll have to fight for a job with plenty of bullpen candidates in town.

Gabe Kapler, OF: Kapler was a big surprise early in the season, but ultimately faded back into his traditional extra outfielder role. Still, he did enough as a part-timer to earn a contract from defending AL Champs Tampa Bay, where he will compete for the starting right field job.

Mike Lamb, 3B: It didn’t surprise us at all when Lamb flopped in Minnesota, losing playing time and then getting the boot outright. Milwaukee signed him late in the season, and he was even worse while playing in Beer City. For some reason, The Brewers re-signed him and now, thanks to the rash of injuries to their third basemen, he could factor in as an important piece in the early going. And that’s just plain scary.

Guillermo Mota, RHP: Mota bounced back nicely after his awful 2007 season in which he had to deal with a drug-related suspension. He upped his K rate, was harder to hit and offered some value in NL-only leagues thanks to his wins and holds. The Dodgers opted to sign the inconsistent reliever, hoping that returning to the site of his best seasons will help revitalize him further.

C.C. Sabathia, LHP: Sabathia got off to an awful start with the Tribe last season, but turned things around and proved to be an incredible addition for Milwaukee at the deadline, sharpening his control and giving the team an innings-eating stud it so desperately needed to help make it over the hump and into the playoffs. Unfortunately, he priced himself way out of the Brew Crew’s price range with this career season, landing in New York when the Yankees opened the vaults for the big lefty.

Ben Sheets, RHP: Sheets turned in a fabulous season, but the wear and tear on his arm (he matched his career high in complete games) once again took its toll, and a two-year offer from Texas fell through when it was discovered he had a torn flexor tendon in his elbow. He’s since undergone surgery which will likely keep him out until the All-Star break and will necessitate him signing a cheaper deal that will include incentive bonuses.

Brian Shouse, LHP: Shouse gave up more homers than usual, but thanks to his vultured wins, holds and nice ERA, he enjoyed a strong season, dominating southpaws to the tune of a .180 BAA. The Rays, looking to bolster their bullpen, signed him a week and a half ago.

Next: We’ll head east to check in on the New York Mets, who had a boatload of free agents to deal with this offseason.

Now, in the past, I have broken down video games into four categories – controls, graphics/sound, gameplay and overall – however, that would be pointless here since 95 per cent of the game is played in menus and what gameplay elements exist are more of a secondary feature. So instead I’ll just sort of wade through the experience and give you a feel for what worked well, what needs some tweaking and what needs improvement.

MLB Front Office does offer a fantasy mode and Xbox Live integration, which has a lot of potential for online leagues if you could piece together 30 serious players, but the real meat and potatoes of this game is the career mode, wherein you create a General Manager, assign him to a team (I chose the Milwaukee Brewers) and follow him over a 30-year career. You take over following the end of the 2008 season and before free agency – meaning C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets were still on Milwaukee’s roster- and once the owner assigns you a budget your first task is to re-sign your players.

The game tracks MLB experience, meaning those with fewer than three years are pretty much obligated to take whatever you offer (excluding “Super 2s” of course) while veterans with 3-to-5 years of experience are eligible for arbitration. Those with six-plus seasons under their belt can also be offered arbitration, but they all turned it down – even Eric Gagne! I then sat back and watched as my top free agents signed with other clubs, choosing to rely on my young talent and nibble here and there. Some of the contracts looked pretty out of whack, like Mike Mussina, 40 years old and retired in real life, getting a four-year deal at north of $17 million per year from the Yankees. But I didn’t mind; it made me play the game smarter, which is what real small-market GMs need to do (unless you’re Kevin Towers).

Unfortunately, a couple more serious issues came out of this signing period. First, several high profile free-agent signings (like Francisco Rodriguez) were placed on waivers following Spring Training and ended up on new teams just months after inking huge new deals. The other problem was that for all the Type A and Type B free agents I lost, I gained zero draft picks when the Amateur Draft rolled around. Of course, in real life, when a team loses a Type A free agent they are given the signing team’s top pick as compensation, as well as a “sandwich pick” between the first and second rounds. The game tells you that you’ll be given the selections during the signing phase, but no picks were forthcoming.

Getting back to the main game, your GM gains experience points by performing various tasks, such as signing a player with a certain level of potential, sweeping a series, winning streaks and more. At certain intervals you’ll level up, granting you points to apply to your own GM skills and the skills of your coaching staff. The more points you put into a category – U.S. scouting, contract negotiation, etc. – the more adept your GM becomes in that area. It’s a tried, but true system and rewards your ability to build a winning team while also allowing for some originality in your GM as you choose which areas to upgrade, thereby enabling you to create an astute talent evaluator with poor negotiating skills or a shrewd trade artist with limited scouting knowledge and so on.

In addition to the previously mentioned areas such as free agency, arbitration and the amateur draft, the game also contains the Rule 5 draft, multiple levels of minor leagues (Triple-A, Double-A, Single-A, Rookie League), a scouting system where you assign amounts based on your budget to areas of the country and world to scout prospects and a surprisingly active waiver wire.

Most of your time, however, will be spent in the day-to-day grind of player evaluation to build your team into a pennant contender. With so many players to keep track of, the interface you’re saddled with isn’t exactly ideal. There is far too much backtracking within the menus with the information spread out across them. While I didn’t find it prohibitive, it can become tedious and is certainly something the team at 2k Sports should revisit before any potential 2010 release. On a related note, the filter system also needs some tweaking as it only allows basic searches when looking for players in free agency and during the draft. I’d love to have the ability to search for specific abilities – say for example, a catcher with an arm rating of 60 or more and a power figure of 40-plus – rather than going through lists of names and overall ratings.

Despite the interface issues, I found the actual building of my club to be very satisfying. While the AI can be quite unforgiving when it comes to trading (and frustratingly not forthcoming about the reasons) I was still able to swing some solid deals, picking up David Price from the Rays and Brandon Morrow from the Mariners to solidify my pitching staff and turning third base over to Mat Gamel. When those moves and several others paid off in the Brewers’ first World Series championship (by beating the Cubs in the NLCS and Yankees in the WS no less), it felt like a real accomplishment because of the time I invested into the process. And believe me, you need to be committed to staying on top of your roster because the computer AI makes some brutal decisions if you elect to “auto fix” your team in the event of injury.

The games themselves can be simulated or you can choose to manage them at the major and minor league levels. In the majors you’re given a bird’s eye view of the action with close ups on the pitcher and hitter, and then additional close ups once the ball is put in play. For minor league games all you get is the overhead view. You’re presented with a basic set of options on both offense – hit, bunt, steal, hit and run – and defense – pitch to, walk – and once you select one it stays active for the entire plate appearance. That means if you choose bunt, your hitter with continue trying to lay one down even with two strikes. It would’ve been nice to have the choice to go into a pitch-by-pitch mode and also to see a few more options, like the ability to “pitch around” hitters. The graphics here look like PS2 quality and there is no announcing, but this mode isn’t the draw of the game so it’s not a big deal.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a couple other issues I encountered as I played through MLB Front Office Manager, one of which was the game’s occasional inability to correctly assign wins and losses. For instance, I removed a starter after four innings in a 0-0 game, eventually lost 2-1 when my closer blew the lead in the ninth and…my starter was tagged with the loss. Also, after the Amateur Draft I suddenly found the computer filling any available slots at the various minor league levels with players with no notification. One day I was just checking out my rookie league team and found it stocked with former major league players (including valuable arms like Joey Devine) while my first-round pick had been promoted to Double-A, where he was the No. 3 catcher. I couldn’t find an option to stop it from happening, but at least the CPU wasn’t cutting any of my players to make the moves, and my MLB roster remained untouched, making it more of an annoyance than anything else.

Overall Ranking (3.5/5)

While the final product didn’t quite live up to the lofty hopes I had for it, I think a solid foundation has been laid for further iterations of MLB Front Office Manager. Some will undoubtedly be turned off by the somewhat clunky menu system and occasional jaw-dropping AI decision, but those that can get past the game’s shortcomings will find an interesting and often rewarding experience.