I'm glad the Brewers never went after Machado. They wouldn't have ponied up anywhere close to $30 M, and to be honest, I think that they were encouraged by what they saw from Orlando Arcia. The kid was a top ten prospect in baseball, and they're not going to give up on him that quickly.
After a decent rookie year, he was awful last year for the first three months of the season. But when he went down to AAA, they tweaked his approach at the plate, and when he came back up, he was a different player. He hit .280 after coming back, and was fantastic in September, hitting .329 in 26 games while OPSing .805. And he was real good in the playoffs, going 11 for 33 with 3 home runs and a .985 OPS.
He's got some pop in his bat (had 15 home runs in about 500 ABs as a 22 year old, and his round trippers were split evenly between home and road), so it's not out of the question for him to knock 20 out a season. And his glove is elite. He's going to win multiple Gold Gloves.
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