TRADE: Brewers Acquire Minor Leaguer Coleman Crow for Adrian Houser, Tyrone Taylor

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Brewers created some 40-man roster space and brought some clarity to both their outfield picture and their starting rotation plans Thursday, trading two stalwarts of the David Stearns Era to Stearns's New York Mets for a minor-league pitcher.

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

The Brewers elected to tender contracts to both Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor at last month's deadline to do so for arbitration-eligible players, but now, both will re-join Stearns with his new team. In exchange, the Brewers pick up a talented injury reclamation project on the mound. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic has the details.

Mets acquiring RHP Adrian Houser and OF Tyrone Taylor from Brewers for a minor leaguer, source tells @TheAthletic.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 20, 2023

The shape of this deal is surprising, in that all the Brewers really get for Taylor and Houser is relief from the obligation to pay them, and the two spots they had occupied on the 40-man roster. The prospect they're receiving from the Mets is Coleman Crow, a smallish righthander whose fastball doesn't light up radar guns, but who does have two interesting breaking pitches and solid command. Crow's 2023 ended very early, as he underwent Tommy John surgery, and he'll miss most of 2024.

Crow also isn't on the 40-man roster, though, and now that he's been acquired on this side of the Rule 5 Draft, he doesn't need to be added to it until next November. The Brewers will get to see him progress in his rehab process and try to work with him a bit in their pitching lab, before having to make a decision and use one of those spots. It's unlikely we'll see him on the big-league team in 2024, but getting him and losing both Taylor and Houser gives the Crew some newfound flexibility in terms of both payroll and roster spots.

It's no surprise to see either Houser or Taylor on the move, exactly. Once Jackson Chourio signed his franchise-shaking extension earlier this offseason, the writing was on the wall for Taylor. He was going to get caught in the team's outfield logjam in short order, and paying even a relatively modest arbitration-influenced salary (somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million) didn't seem to make sense. Houser's salary is an even more significant burden to clear, as MLB Trade Rumors projected him to earn just under $6 million for 2024. After the team re-signed Wade Miley and Colin Rea and brought in Joe Ross as a swingman option, Houser, too, seemed to become superfluous.

The interesting questions here are whether something has changed for the Brewers behind the scenes, in one way or another. They actively chose to keep Houser and Taylor at the non-tender deadline. It would be ungenerous to Crow to say they've now traded them for nothing, but that's not far from the truth, anyway. We know that uncertainty continues to overhang the payroll picture, due to the limbo in which the team remains stuck with regard to regional broadcast rights.

Was there an unexpected constriction? Or has the opposite happened, making the team less interested in trading Corbin Burnes or Willy Adames and more ready to get aggressive about upgrading the roster? It's possible that they simply think they can do better than Houser or Taylor for the roles each figured to fill in 2024, and wanted the short- and long-term flexibility that came with opening two 40-man spots and jettisoning two guys who could not be optioned to the minor leagues.

Recently, there was an unconfirmed report that the Crew are one of the finalists for Carlos Santana, who ended the season as their first baseman. This deal could pave the way for that reunion. It could also help the team maintain a nimble posture in Burnes trade permutations that would require them to take back more 40-man roster players than they send away, a possibility that ought not to be discounted right now.

What do you think of this deal? Obviously, Houser and Taylor have each had some wonderful moments with the Crew, but neither was able to be a consistently above-average contributor, for various reasons. What do you expect the Brewers to do next, after clearing some money and some room on their roster?

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[Trax]

Had Tommy John this last summer?  We give up a MLB quality back of the rotation starter and Taylor?  For a guy who likely will not help us this year?   This shocked me when I read it.

How likely are we to trade Burnes now?   

[jay87shot]

Hopefully the more to come is another better piece than Crow. At the moment it seems like Arnold is giving Stearns a thanks for the job trade.

[Matt Breen]

There's got to be more to this deal than just Crow, right?

[sveumrules]

3 minutes ago, reillymcshane said:

There's got to be more to this deal than just Crow, right?

Crow plus about $6.5M to potentially spend elsewhere.

[Seth Stohs]

Like others, I'm confused. Houser isn't great, but he's a #4/5 starter who, when healthy, could eat 130-140 innings. Taylor's a very solid #4 outfielder who can start as needed. I get there are dollars, but this has to have something else coming, right? 

[Trax]

Stearns continues to make great trades, this time against us instead of for us.

OK owner and front office, now sign a far better FA pitcher than Houser.  For starts. 

[Infield Fly]

And your opening day starter is...Corbin Burnes.

Hard to imagine dumping Houser if Burnes is also likely to go this off season, even if a "major league ready" hurler is at the top of Arnold's wish list in return. Houser's a proven big league average back end guy, which you can't say about Ross, Gasser or even Ashby.

[Joseph Zarr]

Interesting.

Obviously, the Crew valued Crow but weren't willing to roster him off TJ on the 40-Man via Rule 5. They'll have a year to assess, now, before rostering becomes a necessary decision. For anyone interested, here's a Baseball America nugget on Crow:

Perhaps even more interestingly, the Brewers are amassing an eclectic array of serious entry candidates for the obscure 'Possibly the Best Off-Speed Pitch in the Entire Minor Leagues' category of MiLB.tv serial viewers.

1) Misiorowski slider
2) Knoth breaking balls
3) Crow curve
4) Shears splitter

Will be quite interesting to see what happens from here. This is an obvious good faith upside lotto ticket with roster and financial flexibility attached.

[JohnBriggs12]

The Brewers have now given up three guys who combined had 24 HR and 94 RBI from August 1st to the end of the season and have essentially gotten nothing in return.  This for a team that needs offense.

 

 

[sveumrules]

27 minutes ago, Infield Fly said:

And your opening day starter is...Corbin Burnes.

Hard to imagine dumping Houser if Burnes is also likely to go this off season, even if a "major league ready" hurler is at the top of Arnold's wish list in return. Houser's a proven big league average back end guy, which you can't say about Ross, Gasser or even Ashby.

Welcome to the board!

[Trax]

My hopes since this trade does nothing (but free up lint dust from the Dodgers/Mets/Yankees type pocket money) for us this year is that it is a precursor to soon to be made positive moves that will help us this year AND down the road.

I guess that would be to sign at least one substantial FA and a trade moving either Burnes or Adames.  Or both.

[Joseph Zarr]

Also, for those interested, here's Crow dominancing Chourio and Black at Rocket City early this past season. He was ridunkulous in this outing. I recall being very frustrated with the Shuckers bats😄. Campbell poked a two-run jack early (on a great read of a belt high inside curve). The Shuckers did squeak across 3 runs but Crow completed 6 with the 12 punch outs.

Here's more of the early Black (2 K)/Chourio punch outs:

I wrote a rare Thursday recap of the game HERE, fwiw.

[jay87shot]

What a terrible trade. Why even tender Houser and Taylor contacts if we get basically nothing for them combined. Crow is going to be out basically the entire season after only throwing 4 games last year. On top of that he only throw 90 so there really isn't much of a future. Houser is worth a decent amount more than the 5 million  he will make and Taylor is worth more than 2 mill. Both guys on their own should have gotten a player better than Crow.  Even if the goal was to save the money we should have been able to do way better.

[Michael Trzinski]

All those fancy sharp benders...no wonder his elbow is trash 😶

[CheeseheadInQC]

3 hours ago, jay87shot said:

What a terrible trade. Why even tender Houser and Taylor contacts if we get basically nothing for them combined. Crow is going to be out basically the entire season after only throwing 4 games last year. On top of that he only throw 90 so there really isn't much of a future. Houser is worth a decent amount more than the 5 million  he will make and Taylor is worth more than 2 mill. Both guys on their own should have gotten a player better than Crow.  Even if the goal was to save the money we should have been able to do way better.

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the Miley and Ross signings and Chourio extension happened after they tendered them. All three affected the depth chart at those positions.

[Rick Daltons Flamethrower]

The video helped take some of the salt out of the wound. Yet his curveball is rather salty.

[monty57]

On the surface, we gave up MLB talent for a less-than-fair-value return. Maybe Arnold just really likes Crow, but it seems more likely that this trade was done with future moves in mind. The Brewers keep everything close to the vest, so we won't know what's going on until it happens. 

The final line in the article is very interesting: "It could also help the team maintain a nimble posture in Burnes trade permutations that would require them to take back more 40-man roster players than they send away, a possibility that ought not to be discounted right now."

We now have two open 40-man spots and some extra money. That could mean we sign a free agent, but it could also mean that we take back a contract in order to get better prospect value in a trade. Maybe we get one year of an expensive 1B in return for an extra high-end prospect added to the trade.

I'm not that upset at losing either of these guys. After 2019, I was really excited about Houser and Lauer's futures, but both fell off from there, causing the team to scamper to find guys to fill in behind the "big 3" in the rotation. I think Houser is best served in the bullpen, and Fangraphs/Steamer has him projected for a 0.9 WAR this year. Meanwhile, Taylor seems to have just enough power to make people forget how bad he is at getting on base (.286 and .267 OBP over the past two years). He's a good example of a guy who is nice to have on the roster while he's cheap, but isn't someone you want to rely on too much.

Both of the guys are replaceable. It will be interesting to see the next moves to see how they are replaced.