Camp Storylines: Which Dudes Are Out Of Options?

[Jason Wang]

What players on the major league depth chart will have to make stuff work or potentially be subjected to waivers in 2024?

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Jake Bauers
Bauers was acquired from the Yankees in exchange for Jace Avina and Brian Sánchez and was initially slated to be the team’s starting first baseman, much to the dismay of quite a few Brewer Fanatic readers. Fortunately for these readers, the Brewers later signed Rhys Hoskins, and Bauers fell to the second spot in the depth chart. He isn’t expected to see much playing time at all, with FanGraphs projecting him to have just 175 plate appearances this season. This makes sense, given the generally superior option in Hoskins. Despite being at the top of the depth chart for the DH role, his competition with William Contreras, Christian Yelich, and newly signed Gary Sanchez makes it unlikely that he'll stay the first option for long.

Furthermore, he struggled quite a bit as a hitter in 2023, slashing .202/.279/.413 in New York for an OPS+ of 87 over 272 plate appearances. He had great barrel and hard-hit rates, but with a 34.9% strikeout rate, it wasn’t enough to lift his offensive output to a league-average level. Combined with subpar defense and playing a position with heavy-hitting expectations, he accumulated -0.9 rWAR to bring his career rWAR to -1.5. 

He still has a few years of team control left and won’t be eligible for free agency until 2027, but with no options left, it seems like he’ll ultimately end up on waivers or in a trade package for something else.

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Eric Haase
Similar to Bauers, Haase’s role on the team seems a little confusing from the outside. The Brewers already have William Contreras and now Gary Sanchez, who are far better options behind the dish. After being outrighted to Triple A by the Guardians, he elected free agency and signed a one-year deal with Milwaukee, likely a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option after Victor Caratini’s departure to Houston. 

Similar to Bauers, Haase was below replacement level in 2023, slashing .201/.247/.281 for a measly OPS+ of 45 and an rWAR of -0.9. He didn’t do anything particularly well on offense or defense aside from playing in the outfield for 140 innings. In addition to having offensive production roughly 50% worse than league average, he posted -5 blocks above average and was below average in framing for every part of the strike zone except one.

He’ll be a free agent in 2027 and was exceptionally cheap to acquire. In a worst-case scenario, he’s a fun spring training experiment for the infamous Brewers catching lab that eventually returns to the waivers or is traded to another team. 

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Joel Payamps
Payamps is among the many underrated relievers sitting around in the Brewers bullpen. Posting a 2.55 ERA and 1.05 WHIP over 70 ⅔ innings last season, he also accumulated the most strikeouts of his career by far at 77. He notched a strikeout per nine figure of 9.8, a significant improvement over his career average of 6.7 entering 2023. He made significant improvements to his entire arsenal, but his four-seam fastball saw the most drastic statistical increase. His fastball went from a .362 wOBA in 2022 to just a .179 wOBA in 2023, driving its total run value up to 12. 

While this could be due to many reasons, one possibility could be a greater focus on keeping the fastball elevated. Here are heat maps of pitch frequency and wOBA for all of his four-seamers in 2022.

 

He gave up the most damage on the lower parts of the zone and the fastballs that ended up on the middle-left portion (from the pitcher's perspective). So, how did he fix this in 2023? 

He just threw the fastball higher and went to the other side, jamming right-handed batters and avoiding left-handed ones. These strides were big, and with Devin Williams’s recent injury, Payamps may even step into an even higher leverage role for the beginning of 2024. Despite being out of options, it seems he’ll reach free agency in 2027 safe and sound, hopefully choosing to spend his best years with the Brewers.

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Bryse Wilson
Bryse Wilson had a great comeback story last year. After five brutal years in Atlanta and Pittsburgh as a starter, he had a cumulative ERA of 5.54 over 56 starts. After being traded to Milwaukee for cash considerations, things turned around massively. He posted a 2.58 ERA out of the bullpen. He was given the title of long reliever, often coming in for multi-inning relief appearances and accumulating six wins and three saves. 

His success was partially driven by a reduced workload and increased cutter usage. Throughout his career, he’s struggled late into starts, with opposing batters posting a .976 OPS on the third time through the order. He also started using a cutter sparingly in 2022 and saw some success with it, achieving a batting average against of just .077. In 2023, it became his second-most used pitch (although he threw just three fewer cutters than sinkers) and got more good results, this time getting a batting-average-against of .165 over 401 pitches. The sinker/cutter combination synergized well with his high fastball, and although his strikeout rate was still below average, his flyball rate was 31%, 6% higher than his career average before that point. 

Wilson’s role on the team is incredibly valuable. There are signs that he may have benefited more from luck than intrinsically good pitching, namely the difference in his FIP of 4.13 and his ERA of 2.58, but we’ll need more data in a Brewers uniform before we can make a firm conclusion. It seems like his place is as a reliever rather than starter, but he can stretch into two or three innings if needed. He’ll be a free agent in 2027, but until then, he’ll be an integral part of the Brewers bullpen.

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Colin Rea
Before this season, Rea never had a stable job on an MLB team. His most active season was making 18 starts with the Padres in 2016 and pitching to a 4.98 ERA. After two stints in the Japanese NPB, he signed a minor league contract with the Brewers and was quickly called up, holding down his place at the back end of the rotation for most of the season. A no-frills kind of guy (typical of an Iowa native, if we’re being honest), his ERA and WHIP for the 2023 season were 4.55 and 1.19, pretty solid numbers for a fifth arm. 

With Corbin Burnes long gone and Woodruff on the injured list for most of the season, Rea will have to step up and take on an outsized role on a rotation that seemingly pales compared to the 2023 Brewers squad. On one hand, that might add pressure and impede his ability to perform at the highest level. On the other hand, the lack of available major-league quality starters to compete with gives him a slightly bigger margin for error.   

He signed a one-year contract to stay with the team and has a club option for 2025, so it seems like the front office has faith in his ability to be a consistent contributor. 

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[jay87shot]

Is Vieira out of options as well, I would really like to hang on to him but think he will get squeezed out. Maybe we get lucky and he passes through waivers to AAA.

 

[Rick Daltons Flamethrower]

Wouldn't be surprised to see Haase traded in the next week. Catchers are usually a hot commodity. Package him and Bauers. They are both residing in Limboville.