Arbitration Salaries

[BrewCrewBlueDevil]

There are a lot of off season choices.  It's tough to think about 2027 with playoff baseball starting......

 

Milwaukee Brewers (16)

• Andrew Vaughn (5.142): $8.5MM

Not back for 8.5 MM

• William Contreras (5.112): $14.6MM (Brewers hold $14.5MM club option)

Pay the man for one more year

• Bryse Wilson (5.049): $1.1MM

He gone

• Trevor Megill (5.002): $8MM

Traded

• Angel Zerpa (4.082): $1.3MM

Brought back

• Garrett Mitchell (4.040): $2.7MM

Pay the man for one more year

• Brice Turang (3.165): $9.5MM

Pay the man for one more year

• Akil Baddoo (3.082): $1.3MM

He gone

• DL Hall (3.074): $1MM

Pay the man

• Sal Frelick (3.072): $2.4MM

Pay the man

• Joey Ortiz (3.030): $2.4MM

Pay the man

• Bo Naylor (3.014): $1.5MM

Contreras' back up in 2027

• David Hamilton (3.011): $1.6MM

Pay the man for one more year

• Grant Anderson (3.007): $1MM

He gone

• Jared Koenig (2.158): $900K

He gone

• Quinn Priester (2.134): $1.3MM

Pay the man for one more year

[long ball]

I mostly agree with you. 
 

Anderson and Koenig might be cheap enough that they’d bring them back if they are still optionable. I’m too lazy to figure out if Anderson used up his last option this year or not. But if he can still be optioned, I’d bring him back. 
 

Zerpa is an interesting case. He’s probably missing half the year so I might non-tender him on that alone. Maybe they’ll be able to bring him back for a lesser deal. 

[SF70]

40 minutes ago, long ball said:

I mostly agree with you. 
 

Anderson and Koenig might be cheap enough that they’d bring them back if they are still optionable. I’m too lazy to figure out if Anderson used up his last option this year or not. But if he can still be optioned, I’d bring him back. 
 

Zerpa is an interesting case. He’s probably missing half the year so I might non-tender him on that alone. Maybe they’ll be able to bring him back for a lesser deal. 

No to Anderson-Koenig. Yes to Zerpa. 

Koenig is washed. Anderson can be upgraded from. Zerpa will be like a great trade-deadline acquisition. 

Excited to see who the team brings aboard for bullpen possibilities. Holub-Wagoner will be in the shuttle mix along with upper-minors starter arms Kuehner & Wichrowski (should have been converted back to reliever long ago),

Tender Megill and work towards this being the best bullpen in Brewers history.

[Frisbee Slider]

Let’s keep Vaughn. We will lose Bauers and I think he will put up good numbers in his final season before free agency. 

[igor67]

I expect Vaughn back as well while they let the young options ease their way on to the team next year. 

[Jopal78]

Badoo 1150 career PAs .224/.305/.369 

Frelick 1725 career PAs .261/.328/.357

If Badoo is a non-tender at a projected $1.3M, I think there’s a more than zero chance Frelick is a non-tender candidate at a projected $2.4M given his career stats and trajectory. 

However, being Murphy’s boy might trump career numbers and trajectory

 

[sveumrules]

14 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Badoo 1150 career PAs .224/.305/.369 

Frelick 1725 career PAs .261/.328/.357

If Badoo is a non-tender at a projected $1.3M, I think there’s a more than zero chance Frelick is a non-tender candidate at a projected $2.4M given his career stats and trajectory. 

However, being Murphy’s boy might trump career numbers and trajectory

Baddoo did most of his damage all the way back in 2021 with 461 PA of 108 wRC+ and 1.7 WAR. From 2022 to 2025 he followed that up with 682 PA of 73 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR. He did not appear in MLB during the 2026 season and finished with a pretty bleh 113 wRC+ over 262 PA in AAA.

Frelick had a down year, no doubt, but $2.4M is small change to see if he is capable of bouncing back.

Since Sal's first season in 2023 there are 296 players (just shy of 10 per team) with at least 1,000 PA. Only 85 of those players (not quite three per team) have 1,000 PA playing in the OF. Lowering the PA threshold to 850 gets us a little more robust player pool with 105 qualifiers. Some of Sal's ranks among those 105 outfielders...

1,689 PA (34th) | 8.3 BB% (50th) | 13.3 K% (5th) | .099 ISO (100th) | .262 AVG (31st) | .328 OBP (39th) | 94 wRC+ (73rd) | +7.7 BsR (21st) | +28 DRS and +16 FRV (both 3rd among RF) | 5.8 WAR (40th)

Even with some of the worst power of the bunch, Sal has been good enough at everything else (getting on base, running the bases, playing defense) to put up career numbers that easily make him a starting calibre OF. Even if he only bounces back to around the 87 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR he put up in 2024 or the 94 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR per 425/450 PA he has averaged over his career that is still perfectly cromulent 3rd OF production for $2.4M. 

Clicking thru the 2026 team OF leaderboards it looks like the best 3rd OF was Ian Happ with 2.4 WAR. Average WAR for a 3rd OF was 1.1 with only six teams getting 1.5 WAR or more from their 3rd OF. There were 14 teams that got 1.5 WAR or less out of their 2nd outfielders this past season, including the Dodgers and Phillies (whose best OF was 188 PA of Bryce Harper for 1.1 WAR).

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

Baddoo did most of his damage all the way back in 2021 with 461 PA of 108 wRC+ and 1.7 WAR. From 2022 to 2025 he followed that up with 682 PA of 73 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR. He did not appear in MLB during the 2026 season and finished with a pretty bleh 113 wRC+ over 262 PA in AAA.

Frelick had a down year, no doubt, but $2.4M is small change to see if he is capable of bouncing back.

Since Sal's first season in 2023 there are 296 players (just shy of 10 per team) with at least 1,000 PA. Only 85 of those players (not quite three per team) have 1,000 PA playing in the OF. Lowering the PA threshold to 850 gets us a little more robust player pool with 105 qualifiers. Some of Sal's ranks among those 105 outfielders...

1,689 PA (34th) | 8.3 BB% (50th) | 13.3 K% (5th) | .099 ISO (100th) | .262 AVG (31st) | .328 OBP (39th) | 94 wRC+ (73rd) | +7.7 BsR (21st) | +28 DRS and +16 FRV (both 3rd among RF) | 5.8 WAR (40th)

Even with some of the worst power of the bunch, Sal has been good enough at everything else (getting on base, running the bases, playing defense) to put up career numbers that easily make him a starting calibre OF. Even if he only bounces back to around the 87 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR he put up in 2024 or the 94 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR per 425/450 PA he has averaged over his career that is still perfectly cromulent 3rd OF production for $2.4M. 

Clicking thru the 2026 team OF leaderboards it looks like the best 3rd OF was Ian Happ with 2.4 WAR. Average WAR for a 3rd OF was 1.1 with only six teams getting 1.5 WAR or more from their 3rd OF. There were 14 teams that got 1.5 WAR or less out of their 2nd outfielders this past season, including the Dodgers and Phillies (whose best OF was 188 PA of Bryce Harper for 1.1 WAR).

It would be interesting to see who the player pool is. Looking at the metrics we can all see what happened but they do not tell us the “why”. In terms of Frelick he was performing poorly before his shoulder injury and performed even worse after it had healed, so it’s hard to say his poor season was causally connected to injuries. 

 Career trajectory also figures into the equation. 2025 was a lucky one for Sal, his .332 wOBA exceeded his .299 xwOBA. Meanwhile in ‘26 his ground balls were up, line drives down, barrels down and launch angle down. All bad signs heading into ‘27  for a player with very little raw power to begin with. 

With Lara having a $30M guarantee, Mitchell having a breakout season and Chourio; the question is does Sal bring enough to the table to justify triple the price ($2.4M) of say Lockridge ($800k) as 4th outfielder/platoon player. 
 

Like I said the X factor  is Murphy’s affinity for Sal which makes an otherwise close decision less so. 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

53 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

It would be interesting to see who the player pool is. Looking at the metrics we can all see what happened but they do not tell us the “why”. In terms of Frelick he was performing poorly before his shoulder injury and performed even worse after it had healed, so it’s hard to say his poor season was causally connected to injuries. 

 Career trajectory also figures into the equation. 2025 was a lucky one for Sal, his .332 wOBA exceeded his .299 xwOBA. Meanwhile in ‘26 his ground balls were up, line drives down, barrels down and launch angle down. All bad signs heading into ‘27  for a player with very little raw power to begin with. 

With Lara having a $30M guarantee, Mitchell having a breakout season and Chourio; the question is does Sal bring enough to the table to justify triple the price ($2.4M) of say Lockridge ($800k) as 4th outfielder/platoon player. 
 

Like I said the X factor  is Murphy’s affinity for Sal which makes an otherwise close decision less so. 

All good points.

Murph has quite an affinity for Lockridge, too, so that might balance out the equation somewhat.