Dustin May Option

[Mr Southpaw]

Would a Dustin May accept the $20 million player option half of the mutual option in his contract? With the expiring contracts, we have coming off of the books. Would it be smart for the Brewers to offer their half of that contract?

[umphrey]

I don't think there has been an accepted mutual option in MLB since 2014. Probably if he stays healthy then the brewers offer, because if nothing else he would have positive trade value. Will probably take a 3 year deal to sign him at this rate. 

[nate82]

I wonder how much the lockout will impact this decision.  He could just accept so he doesn’t have to deal with FA during the lockout and go with a new contract the following season.  

[BrewerFan]

On 8/17/2026 at 2:15 PM, nate82 said:

I wonder how much the lockout will impact this decision.  He could just accept so he doesn’t have to deal with FA during the lockout and go with a new contract the following season.  

Kinda wild how young he still is and how that stable of young arms the Dodgers once had kinda fell apart(though they just went out and signed 4-5 aces).  

The Dodgers ~4-5 years ago had a stable of young overpowering arms on a 111 win team and most of them just liming along now(May is back, but it's been a while). 

Walker Buehler, he was dominant and looked like their next ace. Throwing upper 90s, great command.
Urias... for obvious reasons, but just from a roster building standpoint, a 21-3 year, ERA over 2.16
May was a top 10-20 prospect
Gonsolin, Bobby Miller... all pitchers who looked like TOR. Gavin Stone is another... I'm sure I'm forgetting others. 

[owbc]

1 hour ago, BrewerFan said:

Kinda wild how young he still is and how that stable of young arms the Dodgers once had kinda fell apart(though they just went out and signed 4-5 aces).  

The Dodgers ~4-5 years ago had a stable of young overpowering arms on a 111 win team and most of them just liming along now(May is back, but it's been a while). 

Walker Buehler, he was dominant and looked like their next ace. Throwing upper 90s, great command.
Urias... for obvious reasons, but just from a roster building standpoint, a 21-3 year, ERA over 2.16
May was a top 10-20 prospect
Gonsolin, Bobby Miller... all pitchers who looked like TOR. Gavin Stone is another... I'm sure I'm forgetting others. 

There's a high bar for success in MLB and an ever higher bar for sustained success. And then with starting pitchers in particular, injuries are more common than ever before. 

Look our 2024 team. A 93 win team that allowed the 4th least runs per game in MLB.

There are only two players who started games for the Brewers in both 2024 and 2026 -- Gasser (5 starts in 2024, 12 starts in 2026) and DL Hall (7 starts in 2024, 1 start in 2026). No overlap in the regular 5-man rotation between the two years. 

[BrewerFan]

42 minutes ago, owbc said:

There's a high bar for success in MLB and an ever higher bar for sustained success. And then with starting pitchers in particular, injuries are more common than ever before. 

Look our 2024 team. A 93 win team that allowed the 4th least runs per game in MLB.

There are only two players who started games for the Brewers in both 2024 and 2026 -- Gasser (5 starts in 2024, 12 starts in 2026) and DL Hall (7 starts in 2024, 1 start in 2026). No overlap in the regular 5-man rotation between the two years. 

Ok, but that's not really similar to the Dodgers rotations and or pitchers that have kinda fallen by the wayside.

You had guys who were in the top 5 in Cy Young voting, Buheler was throwing in the upper 90s and looked like their next ace putting up a 7+WAR season
Urias, he had a 21-3 season with a 2.12 ERA. 
Gonsolin was 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA
Bobby Miller was a top 20 prospect who could hit 100 and had a VERY good year as a rookie going 11-4 with a 3.74 ERA
Brusdar Graterol threw ~70 IP at a 1.20 ERA as a SU man in '23

I think you could go on, there were a number of other arms they had who were top 20-30 pitching prospects.

I don't think DL Hall or Gasser who threw in the low 90s are... particularly comparable to those arms. 

Dustin May coming up was averaging 98 MPH on his FB and was in the ~88th or higher percentile in Ground Balls. 

It's obviously difficult to have sustained success, but the Dodgers weren't doing it with smoke and mirrors, they had a stable of home grown flame throwers who all had great starts and then just kinda... petered out... and the fact that the Brewers have completely turned over their staff since 2024... that speaks to the Brewers ability to find arms(even while losing Priester and Woodruff this year) but with regard to the Dodgers, it speaks to their ability to spend their way out of it. 

Glasnow, Ohtani, Snell, Yamamoto... they signed Tanner Scott and Edwin Diaz. 

It's not really an argument, it's just an observation(though, the argument would be the Brewers do more with less and are... incredibly well run... even though I do not think we should have traded Frias). 
 

[jay87shot]

Assuming he stay healthy I think a Luis Severino deal 2/45 with a player option to 3/67 (I think), should be his floor on May's market. They are very similar pitchers going into free agency. Both were really good early in their career, had a couple lost seasons with injuries, struggled when they came back, have had a decent year before they hit the market, and have really good stuff. I wouldnt be surprised if May pitches well down the stretch and in the playoffs if he got a 9 figure deal. I can see us being able to do like 3/67 but probably not a lot more.

[long ball]

1 hour ago, BrewerFan said:

Ok, but that's not really similar to the Dodgers rotations and or pitchers that have kinda fallen by the wayside.

You had guys who were in the top 5 in Cy Young voting, Buheler was throwing in the upper 90s and looked like their next ace putting up a 7+WAR season
Urias, he had a 21-3 season with a 2.12 ERA. 
Gonsolin was 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA
Bobby Miller was a top 20 prospect who could hit 100 and had a VERY good year as a rookie going 11-4 with a 3.74 ERA
Brusdar Graterol threw ~70 IP at a 1.20 ERA as a SU man in '23

I think you could go on, there were a number of other arms they had who were top 20-30 pitching prospects.

I don't think DL Hall or Gasser who threw in the low 90s are... particularly comparable to those arms. 

Dustin May coming up was averaging 98 MPH on his FB and was in the ~88th or higher percentile in Ground Balls. 

It's obviously difficult to have sustained success, but the Dodgers weren't doing it with smoke and mirrors, they had a stable of home grown flame throwers who all had great starts and then just kinda... petered out... and the fact that the Brewers have completely turned over their staff since 2024... that speaks to the Brewers ability to find arms(even while losing Priester and Woodruff this year) but with regard to the Dodgers, it speaks to their ability to spend their way out of it. 

Glasnow, Ohtani, Snell, Yamamoto... they signed Tanner Scott and Edwin Diaz. 

It's not really an argument, it's just an observation(though, the argument would be the Brewers do more with less and are... incredibly well run... even though I do not think we should have traded Frias). 
 

This is actually a pretty sobering cautionary tale for our current SP group. 
 

not that all of our current SP are flame throwers, but we have a bunch of pre-arb SP who are contributing at the big league level now and are under team control for at least another 4 full seasons. It would be probably foolish to expect Misiorowski, Henderson, Harrison, and  Priester all to be contributing members to the rotation in 2029 and 2030. (I left out gasser and Drohan since they’re a little older already)

[BrewerFan]

13 minutes ago, long ball said:

This is actually a pretty sobering cautionary tale for our current SP group. 
 

not that all of our current SP are flame throwers, but we have a bunch of pre-arb SP who are contributing at the big league level now and are under team control for at least another 4 full seasons. It would be probably foolish to expect Misiorowski, Henderson, Harrison, and  Priester all to be contributing members to the rotation in 2029 and 2030. (I left out gasser and Drohan since they’re a little older already)

I don't really think the Dodgers 2022-2024 home grown pitchers say much about the Brewers. 

We did just fine with Burnes, Peralta, Hader, Woodruff, Williams. 

I think we're a lot more careful with our young arms. Woody didn't have an issue until his service time was up. Any of them could have TJ at any time, but that's not unique to any team. I just think the Dodgers had abnormally bad luck... and also didn't need some of those guys. Ryan Pepiot or River Ryan. They're not exactly waiting with baited breath for those guys to come back. They're fine just trading them and letting someone else wait on them because... they don't need them. They also don't mind signing guys with injury concerns because they only need them healthy for a few months.