After Another Unsuccessful Opportunity, Craig Yoho's Time in Milwaukee Could Be Nearing Its End

[Jack Stern]

After he dominated the minor leagues and reached the majors in his second full professional season last year, Craig Yoho's career has not followed the path he or the Brewers hoped for. In 13 career appearances, most of them low-leverage outings, the 26-year-old has pitched to a 6.75 ERA and 5.22 SIERA.

It was not long ago that Pat Murphy spoke highly of Yoho after a dominant spring training showing in 2025. Within a few months, he became an afterthought on the 40-man roster. After a few rough outings last year, it became clear that the Brewers struggled to trust Yoho in pivotal situations. This season, they've rarely trusted him enough to roster him at all.

Control issues have been the primary culprit, in part because Yoho's stuff moves so much. In Triple-A this year, his signature screwball-like changeup has averaged 2.2 inches of induced vertical drop and 17.8 inches of arm-side run. Even his fastball has averaged 16.6 inches of horizontal movement. In his big-league career, he's walked 17.9% of batters faced.

Back in the big leagues by necessity for most of June, Yoho showed signs of progress this month amid his longest stint to date. In his first four outings, he was throwing enough strikes and missing barrels, posting a 1.73 xERA and 2.54 SIERA. According to Statcast, he induced whiffs on 36.6% of swings, and his average exit velocity allowed on balls in play was 83.5 mph. His walk rate was still 10%, but that will always be part of the picture for a reliever with so much movement. In each of his last two outings, Yoho threw more than half of his pitches in the strike zone.

On Monday in Cincinnati, Murphy said that performance played a role in the decision to option left-handed reliever Drew Rom, not Yoho, to make room for Brandon Woodruff's return. Given that solid work and the recent unsteadiness throughout Milwaukee's 'B' bullpen, one could argue Yoho had earned another shot at higher leverage work.

He got that opportunity on Wednesday night, as Trevor Megill, Aaron Ashby, and a suspended Abner Uribe were unavailable. Yoho inherited a bases-loaded jam from Grant Anderson in the seventh inning, with JJ Bleday representing the tying run in a 6-2 game. With one pitch, a changeup in the zone, he induced an early swing from Bleday for a soft inning-ending groundout to first base. Yoho had answered the call in a big spot.

Things went haywire when he returned for the eighth. Edwin Arroyo waited back on an elevated changeup, dunking it to right field for a leadoff single. Elly De La Cruz worked him for a nine-pitch walk. Yoho nearly escaped with just one run allowed after coaxing routine groundouts from Dane Myers and Sal Stewart, but Spencer Steer blasted an 0-1 fastball over the heart of the plate for a three-run home run. With the score now 6-5, Yoho's night – and his latest big-league stint – was over. The Brewers optioned him to Triple-A the following day.

As Yoho was being informed in the Cincinnati clubhouse that his next travel would be to Nashville instead of Milwaukee, Murphy gave a blunt postgame assessment of his outing, reiterating the shortcomings that have kept the Brewers from trusting him as an MLB-caliber reliever.

"They don't know him yet, they haven't faced him yet," Murphy said of Yoho's first inning. "Now he goes out the second inning, they're expecting it. It's a two-pitch guy, really, and he doesn't throw strikes. You can't do that ... You can see he wasn't comfortable in that situation."

There were signs on Wednesday that some hitters could easily formulate a productive approach against Yoho. Arroyo waited back on his changeup. De La Cruz appeared intent on waiting him out and forcing him back into the strike zone; he watched five of those nine pitches, including two just outside the strike zone and a 3-1 changeup down the middle.

"They know the deal," Murphy said. "I mean, the report's out there. Fastball command, question mark. Changeup, very slow, sit on it, not a swing-and-miss [pitch]. So he's got to make some adjustments with it, and I think he will. He's a great kid."

Most of the Brewers' concerns are valid. Yoho's movement is not only difficult to control, but it also makes pitch sequencing more challenging. His changeup is more than 15 mph slower than his fastball, and its extreme depth means he can't tunnel any pitches within – or even near – the strike zone.

Assume that to get a chase on a changeup just below the zone, Yoho must make it look like his fastball out of the hand. The visual below from FanGraphs shows that, based on how his pitches move, he would have to throw that fastball well above the zone for the two pitches to start at the same sight line. In other words, his stuff moves so much that he can't use an in-zone pitch to set up a chase on an out-of-zone pitch, or vice-versa.

Murphy made a questionable assertion that Yoho is purely a two-pitch pitcher, as he also features a curveball and cutter. However, the curveball is a more extreme inverse of his changeup in all the wrong ways: averaging 75.9 mph with 10 inches of induced vertical drop and 20 inches of glove-side break in Triple-A, it's challenging for Yoho to land in the zone and is effectively impossible to tunnel. To even get that breaking ball to fit on a similar tunneling graphic from last year, you'd have to position his fastball at a right-handed batter's helmet.

A pitcher with Yoho's stuff will never defeat hitters with pitch tunneling and deception, though. Instead, it will work because the extreme movement will miss barrels, even if it's not particularly deceptive. That's where the Brewers may be selling him short.

So far, Yoho's changeup has excelled at avoiding loud contact, even though hitters have likely known it's coming and it has not always been located competitively. In his limited big-league work across two seasons, opponents have managed just a .247 xwOBA, 17.6% hard-hit rate, and 5.9% barrel rate against it with a 33.8% whiff rate. On Wednesday night, it induced two chases and two soft ground balls. The Reds did not whiff on it, but Murphy's claim that it isn't a swing-and-miss pitch is, frankly, incorrect.

Such a pitch does not need to be disguised as a fastball to be effective. Yoho just needs to throw it in and around the zone below the belt. When hitters start timing it up, a timely in-zone fastball can produce a take or a late swing. So far, he has done neither consistently. Yoho is partially responsible for his current situation because he sprayed the ball too much in his early chances last summer.

At the same time, it's becoming clear that a poor fit between player and team is also part of the issue. Whenever Chris Hook talks about a particular pitch, he instinctively states whether it "tracks" in the strike zone like it's a checklist item. To the Brewers, many big shapes pose tunneling problems and do not maximize in-zone swings, so they often find throwing more fastball variants and shorter sliders to be more useful than better "stuff" pitches. There are some exceptions, like Grant Anderson's sweeper, but Yoho's stuff is well beyond the mold.

Perhaps the Brewers are right about him, or perhaps it's simply a poor fit. At this point, a change of scenery looks like the best way to find out. The club has a history of trading former prospects who have been leapfrogged on the 40-man roster for moderate upgrades at the trade deadline. In 2018, they flipped Brett Phillips in a two-player package for Mike Moustakas. In 2019, it was Mauricio Dubon for Drew Pomeranz. More recently, they traded Joey Wiemer for Frankie Montas in 2024.

With the deadline five weeks away, Yoho could be next. A fresh start – and, just as importantly, a setting where he'll get a longer leash to become as competitive as possible with his arsenal – may be exactly what he needs. The Brewers, meanwhile, could fill his roster spot with a more consistent contributor.

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[Harold Hutchison]

Craig Yoho and Tyler Black seem to have the same problem: They're square pegs that Pat Murphy tries to force into a round hole.

Yoho's got the stuff to be a closer, it's more a case of Hook and company figuring out the best use of what Yoho CAN do as opposed to continuing to try to force him to fit a mold that may not work.

[biedergb]

For a guy with as much helium as Yoho in 2024, the cups of coffee in the big leagues have been underwhelming.  He looked like air bender v2.0, but doesn’t have that 96-98 mph heater.  Maybe not a “two pitch” guy but his 2nd and 3rd offerings are not as dangerous from how I read this, so players can wait for a change up and hit the mistakes, or just let his movement turn into walks.  Either pinpoint control if you are not blowing guys away, or another high end pitch to keep batters honest is my thought, but I am pretty bad at truly understanding pitch movement, tunneling, induced breaks etc.

[Joseph Zarr]

Before publishing something like this, I hope BF sends Ginger a fruit basket or some kind of edible arrangement. You know, if we #LetGingerCook we also must #LetGingerIndulge.

[rickh150]

4 hours ago, Harold Hutchison said:

Craig Yoho and Tyler Black seem to have the same problem: They're square pegs that Pat Murphy tries to force into a round hole.

Yoho's got the stuff to be a closer, it's more a case of Hook and company figuring out the best use of what Yoho CAN do as opposed to continuing to try to force him to fit a mold that may not work.

Yoho and Black….Murphy not a fan. Like he’s looking for a way or reason to get rid of them.  No leash.
Perkins….on the opposite end. Murphy wants to keep him. Like a coach’s kid that gets every opportunity. Not good enough to play regularly, but the coach finds a niche for him.

 

[Matthew Trueblood]

4 hours ago, Harold Hutchison said:

Craig Yoho and Tyler Black seem to have the same problem: They're square pegs that Pat Murphy tries to force into a round hole.

Yoho's got the stuff to be a closer, it's more a case of Hook and company figuring out the best use of what Yoho CAN do as opposed to continuing to try to force him to fit a mold that may not work.

That's one reasonable reading of the progress of their careers, but I don't think it's the one best supported by the evidence or the one that's ultimately right. Both guys HAVE gotten chances, and they just haven't shown that they can really hack it in the majors. Then, when sent back to Triple-A, each has slowly shown more and more of their warts even at those lower levels.

I'll tell you this: in addition to neither appearing to be high on this organization's priority list, neither guy is among the players other teams are most interested in acquiring. I think the underlying truth here might actually be that the Brewers gave two guys who probably weren't quite destined to be useful big-leaguers such a good and viable path that they briefly looked like they would not only be useful, but could be MORE than useful. They just couldn't quite pull off what would have been deeply impressive developmental wins. 

We'll see! Each could still turn things around. But I don't think a lack of organizational faith is holding either back. I think their talent is doing that. It's just gut-wrenchingly hard to be a good big-leaguer, and as close as they've each come, I don't think either one is going to clear the hurdles and get there.

[Jim French Stepstool]

I read through all this, and a lot of it is good analytical stuff. But the old catcher in me can't help but come back to the same lament---why in the world was he throwing a hittable 0-1 FB to Steer? If he retires him maybe we're not having this conversation. But big picture, yeah, he needs better command & his #1 pitch doesn't seem very 'commandable'.

[Harold Hutchison]

1 hour ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

I read through all this, and a lot of it is good analytical stuff. But the old catcher in me can't help but come back to the same lament---why in the world was he throwing a hittable 0-1 FB to Steer? If he retires him maybe we're not having this conversation. But big picture, yeah, he needs better command & his #1 pitch doesn't seem very 'commandable'.

Perhaps Yoho needs to add a two-seam fastball to his four-seamer. It would probably be the easiest for him to "tunnel" and it might just throw hitters off enough. Two-seam, cutter, four-seam as fastballs, then use the change and curve to draw swing-and-miss.

[izzi]

Yoho is the Mat Gamel of pitching prospects.