Brandon Woodruff "touching" 92mph

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm trying not to hype myself up but I fully expected him to come in at 88 in the early going.

I'm ready to be hurt again.

[rickh150]

Why we handed him 17.5 million is still crazy to me…”shoulder surgery” and a year off meant little to the team.

Big gamble 

[brewerfan82]

1 hour ago, rickh150 said:

Why we handed him 17.5 million is still crazy to me…”shoulder surgery” and a year off meant little to the team.

Big gamble 

Definitely a gamble. That said, most projection systems have him coming back with a WAR between 2.5 and 3.0 (compared to his 3.3, 2.1, 4.7, 3.6 WARs from 2019-23), if he does that it looks great.

Depending on the mutual option for next year, it essentially becomes either a 1 yr, $17.5M deal or a 2 yr, $28.5M deal.

FA pitchers that are projected for WARs between 2.5 and 3.0:

• Yusei Kikuchi (proj. 3.0 WAR, 34 years old) - 3 yrs, $63M
• Nathan Eovaldi (proj. 2.9 WAR, 35 years old) - 3 yrs, $75M
• Jack Flaherty (proj. 2.5 WAR, 29 years old) - 2 yrs, $35M

So he has a nicer contract than any of those options. And here are the players that got similar contracts to what we're giving him:

• Max Scherzer (proj. 2.0 WAR, 40 years old) - 1 yr, $15.5M
• Charlie Morton (proj. 1.4 WAR, 41 years old) - 1 yr, $15M
• Justin Verlander (proj. 1.4 WAR, 42 years old) - 1 yr, $15M
• Matthew Boyd (proj. 1.7 WAR, 34 years old) - 2 yrs, $29M
• Shane Bieber (proj. 1.6 WAR, 30 years old) - 2 yrs, $26M

I probably take my chances with Woodruff over any of them, noting we don't even know that any of these guys would come to Milwaukee for the contracts they ended up getting.

[RobertCrawley]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I'm trying not to hype myself up but I fully expected him to come in at 88 in the early going.

I'm ready to be hurt again.

He says he feels really good. With him, Cortes, and Freddy, we should win some games.

Not the World Series, of course. That's not our goal.

[wiguy94]

4 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

Definitely a gamble. That said, most projection systems have him coming back with a WAR between 2.5 and 3.0 (compared to his 3.3, 2.1, 4.7, 3.6 WARs from 2019-23), if he does that it looks great.

Depending on the mutual option for next year, it essentially becomes either a 1 yr, $17.5M deal or a 2 yr, $28.5M deal.

FA pitchers that are projected for WARs between 2.5 and 3.0:

• Yusei Kikuchi (proj. 3.0 WAR, 34 years old) - 3 yrs, $63M
• Nathan Eovaldi (proj. 2.9 WAR, 35 years old) - 3 yrs, $75M
• Jack Flaherty (proj. 2..5 WAR, 29 years old) - 2 yrs, $35M

So he has a nicer contract than any of those options. And here are the players that got similar contracts to what we're giving him:

• Max Scherzer (proj. 2.0 WAR, 40 years old) - 1 yr, $15.5M
• Charlie Morton (proj. 1.4 WAR, 41 years old) - 1 yr, $15M
• Justin Verlander (proj. 1.4 WAR, 42 years old) - 1 yr, $15M
• Matthew Boyd (proj. 1.7 WAR, 34 years old) - 2 yrs, $29M
• Shane Bieber (proj. 1.6 WAR, 30 years old) - 2 yrs, $26M

I probably take my chances with Woodruff over any of them, noting we don't even know that any of these guys would come to Milwaukee for the contracts they ended up getting.

Just an FYI, those projection systems do not factor in that he's coming off major shoulder surgery.

[Brock Beauchamp]

17 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Just an FYI, those projection systems do not factor in that he's coming off major shoulder surgery.

Yeah, which is why throwing 92mph is so promising. I've seen a few guys come back from shoulder surgeries 8-10mph slower than pre-surgery. They usually regain some, if not all, of that velocity over a couple of seasons but that does the Brewers absolutely no good on a one-year deal.

[wiguy94]

8 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Yeah, which is why throwing 92mph is so promising. I've seen a few guys come back from shoulder surgeries 8-10mph slower than pre-surgery. They usually regain some, if not all, of that velocity over a couple of seasons but that does the Brewers absolutely no good on a one-year deal.

Well touching 92 could be considered 7mph slower than pre-injury considering he was a guy who touched 99 in the past. Just way too soon to know. Hopefully he throws in a statcast ST game so we can get full velo numbers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Well touching 92 could be considered 7mph slower than pre-injury considering he was a guy who touched 99 in the past. Just way too soon to know. Hopefully he throws in a statcast ST game so we can get full velo numbers.

For sure, there's still a lot left to prove before anyone can consider Woodruff back to form or anywhere close to it.

[bigred]

On 2/21/2025 at 2:40 PM, RobertCrawley said:

He says he feels really good. With him, Cortes, and Freddy, we should win some games.

Not the World Series, of course. That's not our goal.

Woodruff is going to say that, Whether he's feeling good, or not. Our goal isn't winning the WS? According to MA when they bought the team, it was the goal. It should be the goal of every team. 

[brewerfan82]

Off topic - Can we add a 🤦‍♂️ reaction for posts?

[bigred]

21 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

For sure, there's still a lot left to prove before anyone can consider Woodruff back to form or anywhere close to it.

Radar guns can be very inconsistent with their readings. Just saying. Especially in the All Star game. I've noticed several pitchers over the years who normally topped out 95-96, end up throwing like 98-99 when they're in the AS game. I've even seen the radar gun readings between TVand Am Fam field vary around 2-4mph from each other. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, bigred said:

Radar guns can be very inconsistent with their readings. Just saying. Especially in the All Star game. I've seen several pitchers pitchers over the years who normally topped out 95-96, end up throwing like 98-99 in the AS game. 

True, but I don't know if a radar gun was used or Statcast, which is very reliable and consistent.

[bigred]

5 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

Off topic - Can we add a 🤦‍♂️ reaction for posts?

Sure. Why not? It's a somewhat free country still. 

[wiguy94]

12 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

For sure, there's still a lot left to prove before anyone can consider Woodruff back to form or anywhere close to it.

It's also tough to know how through the motions Woodruff was going. It being the first live action of the Spring you would kind of assume it would be more going through the motions than pitching midseason would be so you'd expect velo to be down. I remember Woodruff saying he was pretty amped up so maybe he was going higher effort than you'd expect for that early in spring.

[wiguy94]

5 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

True, but I don't know if a radar gun was used or Statcast, which is very reliable and consistent.

I think it's probably safe to assume the Brewers aren't just using a radar gun for their live/bullpen sessions.

[LouisEly]

It's also the middle of February.  What % of pitchers at this point are hitting 100% of their normal velocity?

[umphrey]

I love Woodruff but it does feel like the roster would be better with Pivetta or Flaherty or even a Gleybor Torres. I hope I’m wrong because peak Woodruff would be the best out of that group. 

[wiguy94]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

It's also the middle of February.  What % of pitchers at this point are hitting 100% of their normal velocity?

Yeah I kind of covered that. Guys this early in the year won't be going close to regular season effort, but Woodruff did admit that he was amped up for the session. So hard to know where Woodruff was from an effort standpoint and if touched 92 means closer to 91.5 or 92.9 or if he did it a singular time or more than once. I think overall it probably leans towards being good but it's pretty much impossible to know without more info.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, umphrey said:

I love Woodruff but it does feel like the roster would be better with Pivetta or Flaherty or even a Gleybor Torres. I hope I’m wrong because peak Woodruff would be the best out of that group. 

Flaherty has a 35 million dollar guarantee and Pivetta has a 55 million dollar guarantee. The Brewers would be nuts to hand out money to pitchers with their track records. They did that with Garza, Lohse and Suppan. 
 

Even if Woodruff is a dud in 2025 and moves on in ‘26. 17 million is a bargain.

[umphrey]

5 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Flaherty has a 35 million dollar guarantee and Pivetta has a 55 million dollar guarantee. The Brewers would be nuts to hand out money to pitchers with their track records. They did that with Garza, Lohse and Suppan. 
 

Even if Woodruff is a dud in 2025 and moves on in ‘26. 17 million is a bargain.

I specifically picked guys with similar AAV, they are all the same or lower 

[sveumrules]

13 minutes ago, umphrey said:

I specifically picked guys with similar AAV, they are all the same or lower 

Woodruff’s $17.5M guarantee is spread out over two seasons (and three calendar years) so it’s only an $8.75M AAV.

[markedman5]

Latest Woody update and plan going forward mentioned here

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2025/02/22/brewers-cf-blake-perkins-fractures-shin-will-miss-3-4-weeks/79424867007/

[markedman5]

I know it’s not analytically correct but as a fan I am happy they brought back Woody and have given him a chance to be a good version of Woody again in a Brewers uniform.

He is one of my all time favorite Brewers and if there is a chance he can become a good pitcher again I’m glad the brewers rolled that dice to,find out.

[markedman5]