Ramirez is 33 years old and will turn 34 in June. He has been a very strong player in his 14-year career with a .285/.350/.500 triple-slash line. Here are some cute graphs of his year-by-year performance in those three categories (batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage):
As you can see it's been an up-and-down career for Ramirez. A lot of people thought he was pretty much done after his down year in 2010 in which he hit .241/.294/.500, but he bounced back in a big way (in a contract year, surprise surprise) in 2011 with a .306/.361/.510 season.
That 2011 performance paid off for Ramirez as he got a three-year deal with Milwaukee. I know Ramirez the player deserves a multi-year contract and offering him a one-year deal would kind of be a slap in the face, but is giving a 33 year old player a three year deal really that great of an idea? At this point, Ramirez has to realize that the Brewers will be the last team he'll play for. Now he has a three year contract and got the money he wanted, so what motivation does he have to play? It has been proven that players perform better in contract years, so the Brewers would probably have gotten a much better 2012 performance out of him had they given him a one-year deal. That said, he might not have accepted a one-year deal, so the Brewers probably didn't have much of a choice.
Ramirez makes the Brewers a better team, but I do not expect him to come anywhere close to the offensive season he had in 2011.