Tobias Myers Returns to Brewers Rotation; Bryan Hudson Squeezed Out of Pitching Staff, Optioned to Triple A

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Brewers' starting rotation gets another important reinforcement Thursday, as Tobias Myers returns from a stint on the injured list with an oblique strain, To make room for him on the roster, though, they sent down a reliever who was a linchpin of their staff not all that long ago.

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

It feels as though no good news around the Brewers can go unchecked by a bit of balancing, bad news this spring. That pattern continued Thursday, as the team returned Tobias Myers from his rehab assignment and restored him to their starting rotation—but sent down struggling southpaw reliever Bryan Hudson, in the process. Myers, 26, was a huge part of last year's starting rotation and was (depending on your own preferences, or on whom you asked) more or less the Brewers' No. 2 starter, entering spring training. To get him back is a huge boost, for a team that has lost Aaron Civale and Nestor Cortes just in the short time since Myers himself went down in March.

Unfortunately, the roster decision in conjunction with bringing him back was relatively easy. Bryan Hudson has been out of whack almost all season, and though the team will hope to get him another reset (after sending him down for one that never quite materialized late last summer), it looks increasingly like Hudson's success in the first half of 2024 was a flash in the pan. His size and his unique release point make Hudson endlessly intriguing, and his friendly, easygoing presence in the clubhouse will be missed while he's absent from it, but the sheer stuff hasn't been there, even on his best days.

Last season, it was not uncommon for Hudson to have an above-average Stuff+ on both his fastball and his sweeper in a given outing. For the year, he finished with a 102 Stuff+ on the former and a 99 on the latter. In nine individual games, each figure was at least 100—which is more than enough to find success, for most relievers, since they're not going to see any hitter more than once. This season, not only are the overall numbers down (90 Stuff+ for the four-seamer, 84 for the sweeper), but there was only one day on which either of those two main offerings reached the average threshold—April 3 against the Reds, when the sweeper was sweeping and Hudson was quite good. 

He's tried to patch the holes created by his heater and his sweeper regressing so badly, adding a sinker and a changeup and leaning into his cutter more than he did for most of last season. Nothing has really worked. Hudson still has the ability to be optioned, so he'll head to Nashville and try to rediscover some of the electricity in the arm, but if he can't consistently muster an average pitch, he's probably done as a reliever of any consequence in Milwaukee.

Myers's return helps soften the blow of that encroaching reality, because the Brewers' rotation looks increasingly able to bear a heavier workload. Even without Hudson, and especially since they do now have Craig Yoho, the team can navigate fairly comfortably to out No. 27 most nights. They're not yet whole again, and Hudson being farmed out is like taking one step back from that, but Myers is worth at least two steps toward it. Gradually, they're moving out of survival mode and into a stretch over which they might be able to push meaningfully above .500.

View full article