Brewers' Latest Roster Cuts Give Some Clarity on Opening Day Bullpen and "Marching Orders" to Down-the-Road Depth Arms

[Matthew Trueblood]

All of Monday's cuts for the Brewers were expected—inevitable, even. However, that doesn't mean either that the players farmed out won't help the team in 2025, or that no new information can be gleaned about the Opening Day roster from the moves.

Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Milwaukee Brewers optioned five more players to Triple-A Nashville Monday, and reassigned two non-roster players to minor-league camp. Among the cuts were pitchers Grant Anderson, Grant Wolfram, Carlos Rodriguez, and Logan Henderson; catchers Jeferson Quero and Ramon Rodriguez; and outfielder Jared Oliva.

(image courtesy: Brewers PR)

Those transactions leave 45 players in big-league camp, including 22 pitchers. None of these moves comes as a shock. Henderson and Carlos Rodriguez were clearly ticketed for the Nashville rotation all along, and both Anderson and Wolfram came to camp as optionable arms whom the team knew would likely need some time to make the adjustments they wanted to emphasize with them.

Wolfram, 28, is a towering lefty who throws in the mid-90s, but he and the team are in the process of tweaking his arsenal.

"It was my two-seam fastball they wanted me to work on," Wolfram said Wednesday in the clubhouse in Maryvale. "Add a sinker. That was something they recognized, that they think I was under-utilizing. So start to throw that a little bit more, Get comfortable throwing that a little bit more consistently. And then my curveball, too. Just add that in the mix a little bit more, and that should help my two main pitches, my four-seam and my slider. Just throwing those two pitches and refining those a little bit more, and they think that’ll help me out a lot."

As Wolfram rightly said, he's worked primarily with the four-seamer and the slider, but the team has a vision of a different, more expansive arsenal for him—in keeping with their general pattern, which is to help newcoming relief options find more ways to get out hitters regardless of handedness. Sure enough, in Wolfram's rough outing Sunday in Surprise against the Royals, he was working on the things they want to see him do more often.

The orange dots there are sinkers; he drilled on that offering even as the Royals made some hard contact against it. The blue dots down at the bottom of the image are curves. Wolfram has had a positive attitude and easy smile throughout camp, and diligently worked on what the team explained would give him the greatest chance for big-league success—even though everyone understood that the opportunity would have to wait until later in the season.

"They like the runner. And then I have a grip that I’ve been working on that has some sink and some depth to it, too," Wolfram said. You can see evidence of that truer sinker in the one outlier orange dot above, well below the cluster. "Right now, we’re just messing with the two-seam and seeing how that’ll play, but then we’ll ease into the sinker, too. I’m excited. It’s clear, it’s easy to understand. They’re not asking me to do too much. I’m really excited. I have nothing but great things to say."

Wolfram also acknowledged that there would be growing pains with the sinker, which will be targeted to different locations and used to set up different things than his four-seamer. Nonetheless, he was willing to take the fledgling offerings into games, to better learn how to accelerate their improvement.

"It’s one thing when you work on it in a side. You don’t have all the stresses of a game, so it’s easy to just work on it.," he said. "And then when you’re in a game, your adrenaline ticks up a little bit, you’re moving a little bit faster. So I think it was good that I was able to throw it a ton in my last outing, and just build off that."

Anderson is in a similar position. I broke down the adjustments he and the team are working on Thursday, but there was never much chance that he would be able to master them this month. He, too, is depth for later in the season, and one reason why the team targeted him was that they knew they would have the luxury of sending him to Triple A to await that opportunity.

"He's definitely got a chance to help us, at some point," manager Pat Murphy said Sunday. "Obviously, a guy who throws [sidearm], you gotta figure out a way to get out lefties, in the day of the three-batter minimum. So, he's got his marching orders, so to speak. I think it's similar to a lot of guys: they're right there. With the number of pitchers we use, they're there."

The rare Cactus League rainout Friday cost Anderson his last chance to make an in-game impression before being farmed out; he said that he'd been scheduled to pitch that day against the Padres. He could still appear in big-league games even after being optioned to the minors, though, given the fluidity of daily spring rosters.

Murphy raved about Quero, one of his favorite young players in the system, but there was never a consideration that he would start the season with the parent club. The skipper did say that the club expects Quero to be ready to play—and even catch, occasionally—when Nashville's season begins. His progress with throwing will determine much about how soon he becomes an option for a call-up; his hitting is largely unaffected at this point.

With these cuts, it's becoming clearer which choices the team faces for the final few spots on the pitching staff to open the season. Vinny Nittoli and Easton McGee remain in big-league camp, but like Anderson and Wolfram, each is more likely to help the team later in the season than immediately. 

Veterans Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale, Nestor Cortes, Jose Quintana, Tyler Alexander, Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, Nick Mears, Bryan Hudson and Jared Koenig are locks to make the team. That leaves two open places in the 13-arm arsenal, with Elvis Peguero, Abner Uribe, Elvin Rodriguez, and Rule 5 Draft selection Connor Thomas in the battle for them. Peguero, Uribe and Rodriguez can all be optioned to the minors, whereas Thomas would have to be waived and could be claimed by another team, so the lefty has a leg up. That would make for a four-lefty relief corps, but Murphy isn't worried about that.

"Yeah. It’s all about if they can get out righties," Murphy said Sunday, when asked if he could be comfortable carrying four southpaws in that set. "We know Koenig and Hudson can. And [Alexander]’s crafty."

Henderson, Rodriguez, Wolfram and Anderson could all still pitch for the Brewers this season—even relatively early in it. For now, though, they've been shipped out, as the team finds its way to a more concrete set of options. Opening Day is sneaking up fast—just 17 days away.

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[Sugarrayray]

I seriously don’t know how I’ve missed this but who is Ramon Rodriguez again?

[Joseph Zarr]

5 hours ago, Sugarrayray said:

I seriously don’t know how I’ve missed this but who is Ramon Rodriguez again?

He was a Minor League FA signing last off-season (Orioles). Played a really pivotal role for Victor Estevez and the T-Rats at High-A Wisconsin. Just an all-around sneaky good player. Solid backstop. Intriguing bat with some pop in there. He had stretches where he was getting DH looks because he was hitting so well. I raved about him semi-consistently in season and then he got a late invite to the Arizona Fall League which solidified his likely standing within the org. 

[Sugarrayray]

15 minutes ago, Joseph Zarr said:

He was a Minor League FA signing last off-season (Orioles). Played a really pivotal role for Victor Estevez and the T-Rats at High-A Wisconsin. Just an all-around sneaky good player. Solid backstop. Intriguing bat with some pop in there. He had stretches where he was getting DH looks because he was hitting so well. I raved about him semi-consistently in season and then he got a late invite to the Arizona Fall League which solidified his likely standing within the org. 

Thank you so much! I do recall him now that you’ve reminded me and I think I was lead astray because his baseball reference link goes to young left handed a pitcher!!