Brewers place Colin Rea on waivers

[liveforoctober]

 

 

[Ro Mueller]

I assume this means that 29 other teams wouldn’t even offer a prospect in trade at this time. Interesting. Good luck Colin!

I hope someone claims him, so he’ll get his $5.5m and the Brewers will not have to pay him $1.0m to throw for somebody else.

[liveforoctober]

oh im sorry, i didnt see this was already posted in a separate thread. you can delete this one if needed.

[markedman5]

11 minutes ago, Ro Mueller said:

I assume this means that 29 other teams wouldn’t even offer a prospect in trade at this time. Interesting. Good luck Colin!

I hope someone claims him, so he’ll get his $5.5m and the Brewers will not have to pay him $1.0m to throw for somebody else.

I believe that this could still potentially be a trade…….or have been revocable waivers now been done away with? 
 

I agree it’s more likely that he either gets picked up or the option just gets declined.
 

 

[Oxy]

If nobody claims him I would think the Brewers would still be interested in signing him for somewhere around $3M or less.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

This does surprise me. $5.5M seemed like good value for a #5/#6 SP in today's market.  He would be good insurance for all the question marks.  I wonder if Civale is retained now.  Brewers do like their flexibility and Rea could not be optioned.  Could be signs of a lot more shakeup.  

[Thurston Fluff]

46 minutes ago, ClosetBrewerFan said:

This does surprise me. $5.5M seemed like good value for a #5/#6 SP in today's market.  He would be good insurance for all the question marks.  I wonder if Civale is retained now.  Brewers do like their flexibility and Rea could not be optioned.  Could be signs of a lot more shakeup.  

I love players like him who get a chance and make the most of it but I also don't think a great story should cloud the judgement of how good he is likely to be next season. I just don't see journeymen type pitchers with average stuff worth taking a chance on in their age 35 season. If he can parlay his past two seasons into a job elsewhere I'd be thrilled for him. If not the most I'd be interested in us offering him is an incentive laden contract with a minimal base salary. Maybe $1-2 million tops with incentives that could boost up to the 5-4 million range. I don't think it's out of the question he could end up settling for a minor league contract with an invite to camp and early opt out clause type deal.

I'll always be grateful for what he did here when we most needed someone to step up. But a grateful heart and a good backstory won't win future games.

[SRB]

He pitched as well as they could have expected when they gave him this contract, so I suspect this has more to do with playing time than money. Yes you can never have too many starters, but if they think they're going to have 5-6 other guys in the starting rotation to start the season, there's no reason to pay Rea to be seventh starter.

Peralta/Woodruff/Myers/Civale are probably locks, there are a couple internal youth candidates to claim a rotation spot, and they may be looking to add a better starter than Rea through free agency.

[Matt]

5 hours ago, SRB said:

He pitched as well as they could have expected when they gave him this contract, so I suspect this has more to do with playing time than money. Yes you can never have too many starters, but if they think they're going to have 5-6 other guys in the starting rotation to start the season, there's no reason to pay Rea to be seventh starter.

Peralta/Woodruff/Myers/Civale are probably locks, there are a couple internal youth candidates to claim a rotation spot, and they may be looking to add a better starter than Rea through free agency.

Woodruff a lock?

[TURBO]

11 hours ago, Matt said:

Woodruff a lock?

Yeah, I'd say he is pretty far from a lock.  He's more of a wish and a hope...

[SRB]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

Yeah, I'd say he is pretty far from a lock.  He's more of a wish and a hope...

They gave him $17.5 million to pitch this year. He's an absolute lock for the opening day rotation unless something goes disastrously wrong. Whether he's going to return to form or even be decent is a different story.

[Matt Breen]

Letting go of Rea surprises me. I'm guessing it's a money issue. I'm worried we'll see a lowering of payroll for next year.

[Thurston Fluff]

1 hour ago, Matt Breen said:

Letting go of Rea surprises me. I'm guessing it's a money issue. I'm worried we'll see a lowering of payroll for next year.

I think the move had more to do with how to spend the money than it did whether to spend it. I think the Brewers have found enough guys like Rea for nothing to think spending $5 million on someone like Rea is just not cost effective.

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, SRB said:

They gave him $17.5 million to pitch this year. He's an absolute lock for the opening day rotation unless something goes disastrously wrong. Whether he's going to return to form or even be decent is a different story.

They aren't going to start him in the opening day rotation if he isn't ready.  THAT'S a LOCK!

Many questions will need to be answered, which is why is far from a lock for the opening day rotation, whether they paid him or not.

[Devinep]

I’m worried this is a sign of sad cheapness which will mean a bunch of “meh” to a lineup that needs more hitting,  especially with them losing one of their best hitters.”  

[sveumrules]

9 minutes ago, Devinep said:

I’m worried this is a sign of sad cheapness which will mean a bunch of “meh” to a lineup that needs more hitting,  especially with them losing one of their best hitters.”  

The Brewers income will be going down next year because of the TV situation.

I’d characterize spending less when income decreases as more of a financial reality than sad cheapness.

There was never going to be a bunch of anything either way, the position player group that scored the 6th most runs in baseball and posted the 5th highest WAR is losing only one player of consequence.

Besides the standard moves around the edges, and barring the out of nowhere surprise deal, the offseason was always going to be essentially two pronged - trade Williams if there is an intriguing offer and try to find someone to mitigate Adames departure.

[Playing Catch]

I was surprised by this move, like many others, but what evidence do we have that this has ANYTHING to do with salary?

[Frisbee Slider]

It is entirely possible Colin Rea is below replacement level player in 2025. In which case, we wouldn’t want to pay him 5.5 million..

[Frisbee Slider]

This kind of feels like the Tyrone Taylor, Adrian Houser trade, except in exchange for nothing. We didn’t really miss out on Taylor or Houser last year.

[wildcat2237]

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/11/colin-rea-clears-waivers-brewers-to-decline-club-option.html

Apparently Rea cleared waivers. So not one other team wanted him for $5.5 million. I am surprised as $5.5 million seems light for a back end starter/long man. 

I am guessing there is stuff in the numbers suggesting a decline is coming.  

[CheezWizHed]

5 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

I was surprised by this move, like many others, but what evidence do we have that this has ANYTHING to do with salary?

I'd guess if Rea doesn't have his late season swoon, he was a no-brainer to keep.  Not exactly sure what "happened" to Rea, but it was bad enough to keep him off the playoff roster.

Salary is only and always within the context of performance.  Pay Ohtani $2M/year?  Easy button decision.  Paying me $2M/year? Hard pass (for the Brewers... I'd take it!). 

Rea's extra $4.5M (buyout was guaranteed) doesn't seem like much, but the team must assume he wasn't going to get better than his current form...and potentially regress (he turns 35 next year). 

It also wouldn't surprise me to find out that 40man roster spots played into the decision.

 

[SoCalBrewfan]

I am a bit surprised, but as I said a bit ago, Rea is probably more valuable in Milwaukee than he is for most teams. Herget was claimed by Mets today as well, so it does seem they are clearing spots on the 40-man roster. Likely this is for all the players that ended the season on the 60-day IL; I don't think Rule 5 decisions are needed for a while yet.

[brewfanmn]

1 hour ago, CheezWizHed said:

I'd guess if Rea doesn't have his late season swoon, he was a no-brainer to keep.  Not exactly sure what "happened" to Rea, but it was bad enough to keep him off the playoff roster.

I’m really not so sure this is the case, or even whether he had a real “swoon” at all

Through July, he had a 4.44 xFIP (3.59 ERA)

After July, he actually had a 4.36 xFIP (5.85 ERA)

It should have been clear to anyone paying attention that the first half ERA was undeserved or at least unsustainable. Of course the same is true about the second-half numbers looking worse than the peripherals, but the bigger takeaway here is that he is a 34-year-old with mediocre stuff, no big league track record, bad peripherals in each of the last two years, and not even a great ERA in that time (4.40). He’s just not a valuable pitcher in an open market. I’m a little surprised how much people are surprised by this

[Scooterfletcher]

Once we placed him on waivers, could we have pulled him back and payed him the 5.5 million?  If so, I’d have have Rea at 5.5 than no Rea and still paying him a million.

[markedman5]

5 minutes ago, Scooterfletcher said:

Once we placed him on waivers, could we have pulled him back and payed him the 5.5 million?  If so, I’d have have Rea at 5.5 than no Rea and still paying him a million.

The Brewers agreed with the market……nobody wanted him for 5 million.

So whoever signs him will get him for less…… small market teams try not to waste money……even though bad signings are inevitable from time to time.