The Academy

Did you know the Brewers are the only team currently without a Latin Baseball Academy? Did you know that there is a recommendation for that to change?

While the second installment of the Brewers' winter Latin development camp got under way Monday in the Dominican Republic, team officials were working on plans to re-establish a permanent academy there for the first time since 2003.

Multiple members of the front office said they expect to recommend to ownership during Spring Training that the club re-open a facility in Latin America, part of an ongoing effort to get the most out of the team's dollars spent on scouting and developing international players.

"I can't tell you if it's going to happen, because it will obviously require an investment of a sizeable nature," Brewers assistant general manager Gord Ash said. "But it's certainly going to be our recommendation."

This is a long article -- for mlb.com -- with plenty of good stuff. Like:

"The thinking was that we would take a different approach," said Brewers director of player development Reid Nichols, who was hired by [GM Doug] Melvin in November 2002 and oversees the team's development camps. "Instead of spending a lot of money on a lot of players, we would spend the same amount on fewer and higher-quality players and bring them right to the States."

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While plans to find a permanent home in the Dominican Republic continue to develop, 18-20 Latin American prospects from Milwaukee's Minor League system gathered at an academy just north of San Pedro beginning Monday for the team's eight-week winter development camp. Most of the players hail from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, all are first-, second- or third-year players and all have a chance to be at one of the Brewers' full-season affiliates -- Class A or higher -- in 2009.

This marks the second straight season that the Brewers have hosted a development camp at the Carp Baseball Academy, a modest facility built by the Hiroshima Carp that produced Alfonso Soriano.

and finally

Players will not exactly train in the lap of luxury. The Carp built the facility in 1990 to help develop talent to bring to Japan, but that team is in the process of leaving. The on-site dormitories that the Brewers rented last year are no longer staffed, so program participants instead will stay at a hotel 20 minutes away on the country's southern coast.

The Brewers are renting two fields, four bullpens and batting cages. Sessions will also be held about community service and "learning to be an independent individual," Ash said in January 2008, when the team re-introduced the program.

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