The State of the Brewers’ Pitcher Injuries

[Jason Wang]

The season hasn’t even started yet, but Milwaukee’s pile of deferred dreams and shaky shoulders continues to grow.

Pitching injuries have become more frequent across the league, but sometimes it feels like the Brewers get the worst of it. At one point, the team’s injured list contained enough talent to make up a pretty serviceable rotation. I, for one, thought that 2025 would bring a new year with a clean bill of health, but reality is rarely that kind.

When asked about why it was so important for the team to pick up Jose Quintana, Pat Murphy recently said:

Quote

There are six injuries we have to pitchers right now. I'm sure every team's going through something, I'm not sure if they have six. But we have six guys injured, and it's helpful to add depth.

To clarify, the six injured arms he's thinking of are (I think):

• Aaron Ashby (oblique strain, out for two weeks)
• DL Hall (lat strain, placed on the 60-day IL)
• Brandon Woodruff (recovering from shoulder surgery)
• Robert Gasser (recovering from Tommy John surgery)
• Thomas Pannone (forearm injury)
• JB Bukauskas (recovering from lat surgery, expected to miss the season)

While it’s true that not all of these will necessarily result in completely lost seasons, it’s clear that Murphy and the front office are playing it on the safe side. Last year, they did a great job of pivoting, acquiring Frankie Montas and Aaron Civale at the trade deadline while even getting some satisfactory starting work from Bryse Wilson. Furthermore, Quintana has a lot to offer outside of mere risk mitigation, so it'll be intriguing to see what he can accomplish in his age-36 season.

But are things really as bad as they seem? It’s easy to have tunnel vision as a sports fan and catastrophize things, and it wouldn’t be out of line to say that Milwaukee has had bad health luck recently, especially in a sport as superstitious as baseball. However, the Brewers aren’t the only ones dealing with this issue. As stated earlier, the increased prevalence of pitcher injuries has become a league-wide issue, so much so that the players’ association and MLB have gone back and forth deciding who to blame.

The Dodgers are a great example of another club that felt the adverse effects last year. Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Clayton Kershaw are just a few names that missed significant time in 2024 and in cases like Dustin May, the causes of these injuries were even more freakish than Jakob Junis getting hit by a fly ball during batting practice. 

This year, it seems like other teams are facing similar troubles. A quick peek around the news will show you that the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers yet again have had recent incidents that will affect their pitching staffs at least for the start of the season.

The glass-half-empty people will say that this is just another sign from a higher power that the Brewers are never meant to make a deep playoff run or win a World Series. Instead, the organization will be forever doomed to above-average regular season results followed by disappointing playoff performances. The glass-half-full people will say that it’s a miracle that in the face of all these setbacks, the team has always found a way to win. 

There's a very good chance the team will lose even more arms during the season. However, there's an equally good chance that no matter who they lose, they'll find a way to fill in the gaps and continue to be one of the most intelligently-run organizations in MLB today.

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[gregmag]

The Brewers seem to be approaching pitching with what I think of (I’m sure real analysts have a real term for this) as a “flat talent” strategy. Premium pitching is expensive, so go get a bunch of starters who profile around average.  If (when) somebody goes down or just flops, plug in the next guy.  Coach them up, avoid exposing their weaknesses, keep the defense elite, and it should work reasonably well.  Do it this way and you aren’t gambling real money on anyone, so no injury should completely torpedo your season.

[wallus]

16 minutes ago, gregmag said:

The Brewers seem to be approaching pitching with what I think of (I’m sure real analysts have a real term for this) as a “flat talent” strategy. Premium pitching is expensive, so go get a bunch of starters who profile around average.  If (when) somebody goes down or just flops, plug in the next guy.  Coach them up, avoid exposing their weaknesses, keep the defense elite, and it should work reasonably well.  Do it this way and you aren’t gambling real money on anyone, so no injury should completely torpedo your season.

I think they learned last year that there is value in guys that will likely make 30 starts so hopefully you aren't throwing the Dallas Keuchel types out there if at all possible