Woody having season ending shoulder surgery

[OldSchoolSnapper]

16 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

They paid him $22M this year for 9 starts.

They paid him $2.5 M to rehab all of 2024 so they could pay him $15M for 12 starts in 2025

His injury history tells me no contract structuring makes sense for the Brewers' end to keep him around past this season.  Good for him he can get this second shoulder surgery done now and still have 4 months to rehab within the Brewers' org and stay with the team until the league year ends.  You don't put a mid-30's guy coming off his second shoulder surgery on a contract you think could squeak into the bullpen 2 seasons from now just because he hit a HR of Kershaw in the NLCS in 2018. 

 

I mean they could have done a lot worse than what he did give them when he did play, 109 innings of 3-ERA pitching is far from their worst investment.

He is probably totally washed at this point, yet we have Lance McCullers throwing for us at the moment. Keuchel. Zimmerman. We have a train of these guys constantly despite whatever backlog in the system people want to refer to.

I'm completely indifferent to telling Woodruff thanks for the memories, now get lost, but my point was that Woodruff's next deal, if there is one anywhere, will be for next to nothing. We end up with a flier guy like this every year. I don't think it's that big of a deal if they let him hang around in the hopes he can throw a few innings in '28. They're only going to do that if it makes complete sense for them and there's no risk involved.

[igor67]

I'm not inclined to be rude about it by any means, but not taking up an entire roster spot next year is pretty important. Taking the gamble last time around that when he came back he'd be really good was a reasonable gamble. Now even though he has been effective when he did pitch I just don't see it. We have too much success with other guys mixing and matching. Keeping him around without taking the roster spot is a different story if there is a way.

[sveumrules]

7 minutes ago, igor67 said:

I'm not inclined to be rude about it by any means, but not taking up an entire roster spot next year is pretty important. Taking the gamble last time around that when he came back he'd be really good was a reasonable gamble. Now even though he has been effective when he did pitch I just don't see it. We have too much success with other guys mixing and matching. Keeping him around without taking the roster spot is a different story if there is a way.

He wouldn't need to take up a roster spot if he was signed to minor league deal.

[liveforoctober]

Maybe I am the one misunderstanding - why are we assuming he is taking up a 40man spot? He isn't getting a MLB contract for next season..

[sveumrules]

The Brewers gambled almost $40M on Woddruff these last three years. He threw 110 IP of 74 ERA- | 76 FIP- for 2.8 rWAR | 3.0 fWAR.

Was that a good ROI within the typical $/WAR framework? Probably not, but the Brewers did go 15 W - 6 L in Woody's 21 starts so not all was lost. I still remember the early season IGT comment that "the qualifying offer debacle probably cost this team a real chance at a playoff spot."

Could that $40M have been spent better and bought more than three wins? Maybe yes, maybe no. How much did Rhys Hoskins (who almost everyone thought was a perfect signing for the Brewers at the time) provide for $34M? How is Kyle Tucker doing for $60M this year, or Bo Bichette for $42M?

What we do know is that even with all that money wrapped up in a Brandon Woodruff who mostly wasn't available the Brewers 253 W - 171 L record since 2024 is just a half game behind the Dodgers at 254 W - 171 L over that stretch. They have won the Division by ten games, by five games, and currently lead by seven games over these last three seasons.

If the Brewers were still able to have all that team success while paying Woodruff almost $40M it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were interested in rolling the dice again for considerably less money. Can Never Have Enough Pitching.

[Jopal78]

At the end of the day money talks, but if you pay close attention to what Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy say about Woodruff it is apparent they place a very high value on the intangibles he brings, especially to a pitching staff with a mitt full of pre-arbitration eligible starters: how he attacked his injury recovery, how he put in the preparation work, how he adapted his game to be effective with greatly diminished velocity, how he competes during the games.

Its probably inaccurate to approach Woodruff as a “what else could we buy if we had that money” situation, because if they can find numbers that work for both sides, they’ll bring him back on another contract, to be around the young pitchers in 2027 while he rehabs and gets back into game action. 
 

Further, even with the dearth of quality starting pitching in MLB, there probably isn’t going to be significant free agent interest in Woodruff coming off a second capsular tear and having missed the majority of the 23-26 seasons with injuries, which also makes it all the more likely he’ll be back one some sort of minimal guarantee. 
 

 

 

[wiguy94]

I'm sure the reasoning will never see the light of day but Woodruff changing his doctors for this second surgery feels notable to me.

 

[Jopal78]

5 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

I'm sure the reasoning will never see the light of day but Woodruff changing his doctors for this second surgery feels notable to me.

 

Dr. Bowman is with Vanderbilt and the team doctor for the Nashville Sounds. Probably nothing more significant than Woodruff lives closer to Nashville than Arlington Texas, and has a newborn baby at home. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

The Brewers gambled almost $40M on Woddruff these last three years. He threw 110 IP of 74 ERA- | 76 FIP- for 2.8 rWAR | 3.0 fWAR.

Was that a good ROI within the typical $/WAR framework? Probably not, but the Brewers did go 15 W - 6 L in Woody's 21 starts so not all was lost. I still remember the early season IGT comment that "the qualifying offer debacle probably cost this team a real chance at a playoff spot."

Could that $40M have been spent better and bought more than three wins? Maybe yes, maybe no. How much did Rhys Hoskins (who almost everyone thought was a perfect signing for the Brewers at the time) provide for $34M? How is Kyle Tucker doing for $60M this year, or Bo Bichette for $42M?

What we do know is that even with all that money wrapped up in a Brandon Woodruff who mostly wasn't available the Brewers 253 W - 171 L record since 2024 is just a half game behind the Dodgers at 254 W - 171 L over that stretch. They have won the Division by ten games, by five games, and currently lead by seven games over these last three seasons.

If the Brewers were still able to have all that team success while paying Woodruff almost $40M it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were interested in rolling the dice again for considerably less money. Can Never Have Enough Pitching.

Aye, moves like this are always weighed against a mythical set of alternatives and not against what the alternatives are at the time the decision was made. 

In other words, yeah we could go down the line and find a 1-year guy who was a better use of that money, but that's easy to do after the fact, and we could have just as easily spent it on something even worse. That said, I don't think we should just give a pass to any decision that's made because we're X games out in first place. A decent reliever for $22 million would look nice right now.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, liveforoctober said:

Maybe I am the one misunderstanding - why are we assuming he is taking up a 40man spot? He isn't getting a MLB contract for next season..

His 2024-2025 contract after his 1st shoulder surgery was a MLB deal.  He wont sign a miLB contract with a team for 1 year just to rehab, it would be some sort of two year MLB deal that would require rostering him for periods of time on the 40 man, leading to whatever organization signs him doing roster gymnastics with healthy players to avoid losing them before tossing him onto the 60 day IL.  If other teams arent willing to do that, he'll probably be forced into retirement.  With the amount of talent the brewers have in their system, it just makes zero sense to do that song and dance with Woodruff into summer 2028.

[wiguy94]

8 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Dr. Bowman is with Vanderbilt and the team doctor for the Nashville Sounds. Probably nothing more significant than Woodruff lives closer to Nashville than Arlington Texas, and has a newborn baby at home. 

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think professional athletes are weighing convenience when it comes who they let operate on their body.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

The Brewers gambled almost $40M on Woddruff these last three years. He threw 110 IP of 74 ERA- | 76 FIP- for 2.8 rWAR | 3.0 fWAR.

Was that a good ROI within the typical $/WAR framework? Probably not, but the Brewers did go 15 W - 6 L in Woody's 21 starts so not all was lost. I still remember the early season IGT comment that "the qualifying offer debacle probably cost this team a real chance at a playoff spot."

Could that $40M have been spent better and bought more than three wins? Maybe yes, maybe no. How much did Rhys Hoskins (who almost everyone thought was a perfect signing for the Brewers at the time) provide for $34M? How is Kyle Tucker doing for $60M this year, or Bo Bichette for $42M?

What we do know is that even with all that money wrapped up in a Brandon Woodruff who mostly wasn't available the Brewers 253 W - 171 L record since 2024 is just a half game behind the Dodgers at 254 W - 171 L over that stretch. They have won the Division by ten games, by five games, and currently lead by seven games over these last three seasons.

If the Brewers were still able to have all that team success while paying Woodruff almost $40M it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were interested in rolling the dice again for considerably less money. Can Never Have Enough Pitching.

The Brewers are too good as an organization at developing and acquiring pitching talent to perform at far less than whatever the WAR-based veteran contract value is for high end starters to mess around with paying "market value" $$$ for arms that are past their prime and broken down.  It sucks for Woodruff as a person and ive always rooted for him, but thats reality.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Don't think this has been mentioned specifically in this thread, and sorry if it has - i believe this is Woodruff's 9th year in MLB....10 years service time gets you fully vested in MLB's player pension system, health care for life, etc...

Pretty solid reasons to figure out how to get a MLB contract somehow next year for himself

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Don't think this has been mentioned specifically in this thread, and sorry if it has - i believe this is Woodruff's 9th year in MLB....10 years service time gets you fully vested in MLB's player pension system, health care for life, etc...

Pretty solid reasons to figure out how to get a MLB contract somehow next year for himself

Woodruff entering this year was at 7.161 years of service time so after this year he will need 1 year and 11 days of service time to hit that 10 year mark.

[Fear The Chorizo]

9 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Woodruff entering this year was at 7.161 years of service time so after this year he will need 1 year and 11 days of service time to hit that 10 year mark.

Exactly my point - calendar years in the majors and service time calcs are different - but its obviously a reason woodruff will do whatever he can to sign another 2 year MLB contract predicated on him rehabbing all of 2027 and part of 2028 before seeing if he can actually pitch at the highest level again.  He could accrue that 10 years time without ever truly being able to pitch again in the majors with IL time.

I hope he finds a team that will give him that shot - i just dont want it to be the brewers doing it.  Lets be honest - his career has been extended the last 3 years because of this organization.

[Jopal78]

57 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think professional athletes are weighing convenience when it comes who they let operate on their body.

 

The guy reportedly doing this surgery is a board certified orthopedic surgeon, who specializes in shoulder care, is on staff at one of the top 10 university medical centers in the US, and is the team doctor for an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. 
 

Sheesh, it is not exactly going to Dr. Nick because he’s down the street, is it? 

Which  isn’t to say I am right only that there are numerous reasons why somebody might switch surgeons and none of them are nefarious