In his "Baseball Beat" post, Tom H. talks Brewer pitching and the perils of only having 5 starters.  It's interesting to hear Melvin, Attanasio, and Macha discuss the need for one or two more starters --- but not as interesting as this little nugget:

In fact, Macha revealed that Villanueva would have been the first choice to fill the closer's role had all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman not been signed.

I can see Villanueva as closer --- moreso than us backing up the armored truck for, say, FUentes.  Still, with an already tenuous rotation, moving Villy to closer and bringing on another crapshoot reclamation project would have made 2009 that much more bumpy.