New Brewers free-agent acquisition Lorenzo Cain happy to be back where he started his career

While most of the rest of the big-name free agents are still twisting in the wind with pitchers and catchers scheduled to report to spring training only about three weeks from now, Lorenzo Cain can finally rest easy knowing he’s back where his major-league career started – with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Less than a day after the news broke that the outfielder was returning to the team that drafted him in the 17th round out of Tallahassee Community College in 2004, Cain was re-introduced in a news conference on Friday afternoon at Miller Park.

Cain signed a five-year contract that will pay the 31-year-old a total of $80 million. It’s the largest free-agent deal ever extended by the Brewers, who have quickly and completely remade their outfield by signing Cain and pulling off a blockbuster trade for Christian Yelich.

“It’s definitely chilly out there,” said Cain, referencing the free-agent market that still includes the likes of Yu Darvish, Jake Arrieta and J.D. Martinez as well as former Kansas City Royals teammates Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas.

“But I’m definitely happy I was able to get something done. It was slower than expected this off-season and took longer than I expected. As you’ve seen, it’s definitely not going as planned as far as guys jumping out and signing quick.

“But Milwaukee was in on me from the get-go – other teams as well – and once I got a phone call from David (Stearns), this was the spot I wanted to be in.”

RELATED: Brewers deal top prospects for Yelich, sign Cain | Twitter reaction

Stearns, who was on hand to welcome Cain back to Milwaukee along with manager Craig Counsell, confirmed Cain was high on the team’s wish list this off-season.

While the Brewers still had a pair of up-and-coming centerfielders in the fold in Keon Broxton and Brett Phillips after trading top prospect Lewis Brinson to Miami in the Yelich deal, neither were close to offering the package Cain does both in terms of talent and experience.

Cain returns to the Brewers on the heels of a 2017 season that saw him play in a career-high 155 games and hit .300 with 15 home runs and 49 runs batted in while stealing 26 bases. He also posted an on-base percentage of .363 and an OPS of .803 while hitting mostly second or third on a Royals team that also featured Hosmer and Moustakas.

Defensively, Cain was also a finalist for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award as Kansas City’s starter in center.

“As we evaluated our off-season this year - really dating back to August and September - and how to build on last year and how to continue our path as an organization and evaluate the different ways we could do that, we kept on coming back to Lorenzo,” Stearns said.

“Lorenzo’s talent on the field is well-known and well-recognized throughout the league. He’s one of the rare, true five-tool players in baseball right now. He’s a winning player. He’s played and performed on the biggest stages in baseball, and we’re certainly very excited to have him and his entire family back here.”

Cain appeared as though he’d be part of the future for the Brewers when he made his major-league debut back in 2010, an athletically gifted centerfielder who hit .306 in 43 games.

But in December of that off-season, team principal owner Mark Attanasio and then-general manager Doug Melvin decided to push all their chips in and make a run at the World Series in 2011. The big move wound up being Zack Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt coming to Milwaukee with Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi heading back to Kansas City.

While the Brewers wound up falling a couple games short of the World Series that season, Cain teamed with Hosmer, Moustakas and Escobar to form the nucleus that led the Royals to the Fall Classic in both 2014 and ’15. Kansas City won its second World Series title in ’15.

A .295 career hitter in 31 postseason games, Cain was named MVP in the 2014 American League Championship Series. Production in high-pressure situations such as those will earn Cain plenty of cache in a Brewers clubhouse that features only a handful of players with playoff experience.

“From my perspective we’re adding a very, very good player, and a guy that I feel like we know well, that has accomplished the height of the game,” said Counsell. “And it’s going to be meaningful. I think it plays a part in when we get this thing rolling, hopefully, and we’re talking about games in August and September and hopefully October that he’s certainly been a part of.

“(The postseason experience) is another feather in his cap, but he’s bringing a lot to the table and I think that’s why we’ve been so interested from the start.”

Cain’s best overall season came in 2015, when he was named an all-star and finished third in AL MVP balloting after hitting .307 with 16 homers and 72 RBI, 28 stolen bases and an .828 OPS. He said he never thought he’d get another chance to don a Brewers uniform when he was initially traded away. And incidentally, he’s once again teammates with Jeffress.

“It did hurt a little bit when I got traded; definitely mixed emotions for me," he said. "I just remember getting that phone call and finding out I was getting traded after spending so much time in Milwaukee with the team that had drafted me.

“But to get an opportunity to come back here and play with Milwaukee is definitely a dream come true.”

Counsell and Cain were actually teammates on that 2010 team, and Counsell spent part of Friday recalling Cain’s talents as a youngster.

Among the highlights were a spectacular fence-crashing catch Cain made at Great American Ball Park in September 2010, and the $50 bonuses he and Prince Fielder would offer Cain for hitting 10 or more home runs in batting practice.

“I knew there was power in there,” Counsell said with a laugh of Cain, who has gone deep 57 times in 756 career games. “I was trying to get the power out of him.”

Counsell left no doubt that Cain will be the Brewers’ primary centerfielder, with Yelich also likely seeing some time there. Both Cain and Yelich figure to provide defensive upgrades as well as better balance to what was a power-reliant, strikeout-prone lineup in 2017.

For his part, Cain said one of his major goals moving forward will be to stay healthy – he’s dealt with leg and wrist injuries in the past.

"I feel like I've been a part of this group, like I can add to it, and hopefully put them over the hump, and give them the extra boost they need to be where they need to be," he said. "And that's the playoffs."

Cain’s contract will pay him $13 million this season, $14 million in 2019, $15 million in 2020, $16 million in 2021 and $17 million in 2022 with $1 million deferred each year for five years afterward. He also has full no-trade protection this season, with those protections diminishing to just five teams by 2022.

To clear space for Cain on the 40-man roster, the Brewers released left-hander Wei-Chung Wang.