Will Brewers Move Tyler Alexander Over on Pitching Mound in Search of Success?

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Brewers have a new left-handed pitcher, but he's had a hard time converting an interesting arsenal into consistent outs. How might Milwaukee tinker with his formula?

Image courtesy of © Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

On Wednesday afternoon, the Brewers agreed to a one-year deal with lefty hurler Tyler Alexander, a swingman who could contribute outs for them either in the starting rotation or out of the bullpen in 2025. Alexander, 30, is a relatively soft tosser, but he fills up the strike zone and has good command of several pitches. While the Crew surely aren't banking on a huge season from him, it's easy to see why they might have liked him at a low price.

Alexander is considerably older than Bryse Wilson was when the team acquired him after the 2022 season. Otherwise, though, there are some noteworthy similarities: Each had a deep arsenal, but struggled to miss bats. Each was viewed as a potential innings sponge, flexing between roster roles. Each also looked like a good candidate for a few of the adjustments the Brewers like to make best.

When Wilson came to the Brewers, he was releasing the ball an average of 1.82 feet wide of the center of the pitching rubber, with an arm angle of 38.2°. In his first campaign with the team, though, that horizontal release point swung out to 2.96 feet from the center of the rubber, and his arm angle was up to 43.1°. Seeing Wilson's big frame and the promise in his cutter, Chris Hook and company convinced their burly new hurler to work from the third-base side of the rubber, creating more difficult angles for hitters. Wilson talked about that as a point of emphasis the team broke down with him right away when they traded for him.

This is a pattern. Hook and the Brewers like when they can force tough looks on batters. In his first year with the team, Hoby Milner went from a release point 2.97 feet toward first base from the center of the rubber to one 3.62 feet in that direction, when he joined the Brewers in 2021. Jared Koenig's horizontal release point moved from 2.15 feet toward first to 2.76 feet. The team and DL Hall collaborated to raise his arm angle from 40.6° to 43.3°, but Koenig lowered his slot from 37.7° to 31.4°. By and large, the Brewers want to create extreme release points. If you have a vanilla arm slot, especially from the left side, they'll tweak it. That's fine, because they'll also move you over on the mound toward your arm side.

Coming into his Brewers tenure, Alexander has a very bland 36° arm angle, and his average horizontal release point of 1.50 feet to the first-base side of the center of the rubber was in the bottom quartile in distance from that center among left-handed pitchers in 2024. Look for those things to change. Jack Stern beautifully broke down his arsenal in the news piece about this signing Wednesday, so dig in there for more details on his pitch shapes and usage, but the gist will be familiar to those who watched the team transform pitchers like Wilson for the better.

Alexander also has lackluster release extension; he's not getting down the mound and gaining the half-tick of perceived velocity available to pitchers who do so. That's another signature thing the Brewers try to improve, and was a huge driver of the successes of (among others) Milner and Bryan Hudson. 

If the team didn't already like some things Alexander has been doing (especially having three fastballs and five overall pitches, and throwing them for strikes), they would not have signed him. That doesn't mean they'll lean solely on his raw talent to get value from him, though. Expect some tweaks, under the stewardship of Hook and others, and expect a more complete and compelling Alexander on the other side of that process—even if it only unlocks a low-grade competence akin to that of Wilson and others in recent seasons.

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[jesusoftheapes]

If you wanted another pitcher who is Colin Rea why not just have gone out and kept Colin Rea?    I see nothing about this signing to like .  I do not like pitchers who throw under 90 heat sorry not sorry.   

I do not get this pitcher but that does not mean anything . The Brewers are good at making pitchers out of nothing and this pitcher is another nothing.       So we will see if they can make him better.    However If this was the level pitcher they wanted to get why not just sign Rea again?  At least I trust him and he has Brewers mound time under him.  there is no magic sauce that will make Anderson a great pitcher.  His ceiling is low and not getting any higher.    Same could be said about Rea but at least he was our unspectacular inning eater.    Rea was inexpensive to sign.    If they had no plan to improve his rotation spot with a pitcher who has bigger upside and could build into a star why change?