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  • Milwaukee Brewers Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

    The latest Milwaukee Brewers free agent and trade rumors, along with notes and tidbits about the team.
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    Brock Beauchamp
    32‑year‑old first baseman Rhys Hoskins has batted .242/.340/.428 with 12 home runs and 42 RBIs through 82 games this season. On July 5, he exited a 4–2 loss to the Marlins after jamming his left thumb tagging out a runner. X-rays were negative, but the MRI revealed a grade 2 sprain, and he’ll require a stint on the 10-day injured list. Hoskins has a hard‑hit rate of 45.8% and a wOBA of .334.
    Grade‑2 thumb sprains typically sideline MLB players for 2–4 weeks. Aroldis Chapman missed about three weeks with a similar right thumb sprain in 2023, while infielder Xander Bogaerts was also out roughly three weeks after a grade‑2 left thumb sprain in 2021.
    Called up to Milwaukee to replace Hoskins is Andrew Vaughn, who has an OPS of .838 in 65 plate appearances in Triple-A Nashville. He was recently acquired in trade from the Chicago White Sox.
    Thanks to @markedman5 for creating the original thread on the Brewer Fanatic forums.
    Matthew Lenz
    Freddy Peralta, who's on pace for the best season of his career, is reportedly interested in signing an extension with the Milwaukee Brewers, according to Jon Heyman of the NY Post.
    Peralta has a team option for 2026 that would pay him $8 million - basically a no brainer for the Brewers.
    Peralta has been phenomenal for the Brewers in his 14 starters this season. The 29 year old has a 2.69 ERA (3.89 FIP) and 14.8% strikeout minus walk rate. The one gripe you could make is his elevated walk rate, otherwise the right hander has been lights out with elite fastball and offspeed offerings.
    If you were in charge, how many years and how much money would you give Peralta, if any?
    Matthew Lenz
    The Milwaukee Brewers have been keeping the hot stove warm in the last two days. They traded Aaron Civale, who requested a trade after being forced to the bullpen, to the Chicago White Sox for 1B/OF Andrew Vaughn. Vaughn was previously with the White Sox Triple-A affiliate.
    That move has prompted the team to put 1B/OF Jake Bauers on the trade blocking, according to Francys Romero.
    Vaughn and Bauers are redundant on the Brewers' 40-man roster as they profile similarly, and Rhys Hoskins is the team's primary first baseman. The team must view Vaughn better than they do Bauers, given how the last few hours have unfolded. Bauers has had a good start to the season with a .762 OPS and five home runs, but is significantly cheaper than Vaughn. It's a pretty surprising move as Vaughn has been underwhelming in his big-league career.
    What do you think of the moves today?
    Matthew Trueblood
    Freddy Peralta, Jose Quintana, Quinn Priester and Chad Patrick will all retain their spots in the Brewers starting rotation, with the arrival of Jacob Misiorowski rounding out the group. The odd man out will be Aaron Civale, last year's early-July starting reinforcement. Civale, who turns 30 on Thursday, has a 4.91 ERA in five starts this year, and is a free agent at season's end. Everyone else in the mix either has significantly outperformed him; is more important to the long-term future of the Brewers; or meets both of those criteria.
     
    Presumably, Misiorowski will take the place on the roster of Easton McGee, whom the team recalled to replace the optioned Grant Anderson. With Civale, DL Hall and Aaron Ashby all in the pen, the Brewers now have one of the deepest groups of multi-inning relief options in the league. That figures to come in handy, since Patrick, Misiorowski and even (lately) Peralta are prone to short starts. One way or another, though, the pitching staff certainly got more talented—and Pat Murphy's job to manage it just got a hair more complicated.
    Matthew Lenz
    Baseball America has updated their Top 100 prospect list at the start of June and it's unsurprising that the Milwaukee Brewers systems leads the charge with four prospects in the top 33. While they don't have the most prospects in the top 100, they aren't far off from Los Angeles Dodgers who have five. 
    Jesús Made(#4), Jacob Misiorowski (#21), Luis Peña (#31), and Cooper Pratt (#33) are the four names to crack the list.
    Made has arguably been the hottest name in the prospect word as he's torn apart Single-A Carolina with an .837 OPS, four home runs, and 21 stolen bases. Misiorowski has a sparkling 2.31 ERA and a so-so 19.2% K-BB rate for Triple-A Nashville. Peña, at the same level as Made, is another prospect who's been a popular topic of conversation this season. He has a .964 OPS with five home runs and 23 stolen bases. Finally, Pratt hasn't had quite the same level of success for Double-A Biloxi with just a .650 OPS. He does have four home runs and 10 stolen bases on the season.
    When will the Brewers call up Misiorowski? Was anyone snubbed from the top 100 list? Join the conversation in the comments!
    Brock Beauchamp
    In a recent roundup on MLB.com, early results on MLB television ratings were revealed. They include:
    MLB on Fox is up 10% MLB on ESPN is up 22% MLB Tuesday on TBS is up 16% Perhaps most importantly, it appears substantial gains are being made in the 18-34 age demographic, a decades-long weakness of Major League Baseball.
    This is in sharp contrast to the World Series, which has been in decline for years and is often used as a benchmark for the overall popularity of the sport. I was able to find World Series ratings dating back to 1968, and until 2007 the World Series never carried a rating under 10. That slowly spiraled until it hit its low-water mark of 4.7 in 2023 as the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks squared off.
    MLB and Commissioner Rob Manfred have aggressively pushed rules changes, largely in an attempt to capture younger demographics that have abandoned baseball in favor of football and basketball.
    Is baseball on the rebound with fans or is this just a blip on the radar?
    Brock Beauchamp
    Brock Wilken, third baseman for the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, has been named the Brewers Minor League Player of the Month.
    Wilken, the Brewers' first-round pick in the 2023 MLB Draft out of Wake Forest, was outstanding at the plate in May. He posted a .938 OPS with nine home runs in the month while carrying a very respectable .368 on-base percentage. Thirteen of his 22 hits on the month went for extra bases. Wilken has logged most of his time at the hot corner in 2025, starting 39 of his 51 games there.
    You can view Wilken's scouting report and stats on our prospect profile page:
     
    Matthew Trueblood
    We're all still grieving the loss of Bob Uecker last week, and on Thursday night, Avalon Atmospheric Theater in Milwaukee will give fans a chance to concelebrate him one more time in a fun way. They're holding a special screening of Major League at 7 PM. 
    Never was Ueck's wit and comedic brilliance more boldly displayed than in the movie, in which he got to play some version of himself—with everything shaded just a hair more wry, cynical, and silly. His manipulation of a radio audience blind to the real action ("Juust a bit outside," in the most indelible case) was hilarious on multiple levels, not the least of which was that it reflected a real habit of many play-by-play announcers in a time when fewer games were available on TV. Meanwhile, the hard-bitten and occasionally cruel character he shaped for himself was a key part of the movie's acerbity and a vaccine against the tendency of almost all sports movies to be a bit too saccharine.
    Yet, Uecker also narrated key sequences of game action, and the way he settled into a very authentic facsimile of his own work calling real games heightened the film's veracity and sharpened all of its best features in the process. The baseball comedy would have been diminished both in its baseball value and its comedic value if anyone else were to take Uecker's place in the role of Harry Doyle.
    Tickets to the show at the Avalon can be purchased here.
    Matthew Trueblood
    In a follow-up to Tuesday's release of their top 101 prospects list for 2025, the folks at Baseball Prospectus published a list Thursday of 10 prospects who weren't especially close to making that list, but whom they believe could land there at this time next year. Notable among the group was Brewers outfielder Yophery Rodriguez.
    A lefty hitter and thrower, Rodriguez played all of 2024 at age 18, and he played the whole season at Low-A Carolina. He held his own there, too, facing much older competition (even now that the minors have contracted and players at that lowest full-season level have gotten younger). He walked a lot and had a 100 DRC+ in 484 plate appearances, and his tools are evident. He could start 2025 with the Timber Rattlers, which would be remarkable progress for a 19-year-old. In brief chances to play with the big boys last spring training, he made an instant impression, too. Alongside the higher-upside Jesús Made, Rodríguez is a symbol of the Brewers' stellar recent work in Latin America and the sustainability of their system of consistent contention.
    Matthew Trueblood
    At long last, the Brewers' most tantalizing not-quite-success story of the last several years has found the place where he belonged all along. Keston Hiura agreed to a minor-league deal with an invitation to big-league spring training, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com.
    Hiura, 28, made it back to MLB for just 27 plate appearances in 2024, with the Angels, after not cracking the majors at all in 2023. He batted .148, without a walk or an extra-base hit. However, Hiura's kryptonite has always been the high, carrying fastball. You know where fastballs have a hard time carrying well? Coors Field. It's not that hard to imagine Hiura taking the place of non-tendered second baseman Brendan Rodgers and hitting the Rockies 12 or 15 or 20 home runs. He won't actually be good, but the ballpark just might be enough to make his raw numbers look good. It won't change the fact that the Brewers were right to move on from Hiura, or anything. It's just nice to see an old friend land in a place where a minor renaissance is, at least, plausible.
    Matthew Trueblood
    Baseball Prospectus dropped their Top 101 Prospects list for 2025 Tuesday, and it not only includes four Brewers farmhands, but shoves some helium into the likes of Jesus Made and Cooper Pratt. Here are the rankings for each player from the Crew's system who made the list:
    No. 31: Jesús Made No. 61: Jeferson Quero No. 63: Cooper Pratt No. 65: Jacob Misiorowski Made's emergence as a full-fledged premium prospect continues apace. He won't even turn 18 until May, but an assignment to full-season ball in Carolina sure feels possible, and it's starting to feel a lot like Made is the team's next Jackson Chourio. Meanwhile, Pratt (who held his own so impressively across both levels of A ball in 2024, at bat and in the field) looks increasingly like a player who could take over an infield spot for the Brewers by Opening Day 2026.
    BP elected not to ding Quero much on the basis of the severe shoulder injury he suffered early last season, and while Misiorowski's ranking isn't as lofty or hype-fueled as we might have dreamed a year ago, he remains solidly among the top 20 pitching prospects in the game.
    With some gentle prompting, co-author Jarrett Seidler also informed us all that Mike Boeve was a narrow miss for the list. The Brewers' depth, in other words, does not stop with the top 101. Milwaukee's farm system continues to be a strength, and some very real impact is on the horizon.
    Brock Beauchamp
    Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a great piece about Wade Miley and his return from Tommy John surgery.
    Miley's recent run with the Brewers has been a story of declined options. Upon returning to Milwaukee for the 2023 season, he pitched incredibly well, posting a 3.14 ERA over 120 innings. He declined his 2024 option before returning to the Brewers on a $7 million deal. He only made two starts before suffering an injury in an April 16th game. He later underwent surgery.
    There are several great quotes from Miley in the article above, I highly suggest reading it. To boil it down, Miley wants to come back and pitch as early as May 2025, just 12-13 months after undergoing surgery. He believes that given his age, pushing the return date forward aggressively is possible due to the fact Miley only wants one or two more years out of his left arm before he retires; long term health isn't a factor.
    As for where he wants to pitch, he gave this outstanding quote:
    Brock Beauchamp
    Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote in a recent trade rumors round-up that the Brewers are open to moving Rhys Hoskins for salary relief.
    Hoskins will be difficult to move, especially right now. There are a slew of first base free agents still on the market including Pete Alonso, Christian Walker, Carlos Santana, and others. It's hard to envision the Brewers being able to find a taker on Hoskins' contract until most, if not all, of those options are off the board.
    Hoskins underperformed in 2024, posting a 98 OPS+. Convincing a team to trade for him includes getting them to buy into a Hoskins bounce back season in 2025. Hoskins is owed $18 million in 2025 and has a mutual option in 2026 with a $4 million buy out.
    Brock Beauchamp
    Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reported that Devin Williams is one of the relief arms the Dodgers are interested in for 2025.
    Williams is likely to be traded this offseason. He and his famed Airbender have been one of the best relievers in baseball for several years and with only one year of team control remaining, the Brewers have to consider what role he will play in the long-term health of the franchise.
    The Dodgers certainly have the horses to accomplish this trade. According to MLB Pipeline, they have the fifth-best farm system in baseball. Williams will command a significant return not only due to his on-field performance but because he'll likely garner a Qualifying Offer after the 2025 season, bringing in an additional draft pick for 2026.
    While Williams' return in trade should be notable, do not expect a return similar to Corbin Burnes when the Brewers traded him last year. The Brewers received Joey Ortiz and DL Hall in return; any return for Williams should be lower than that should the Brewers decide to trade him.
    Brock Beauchamp
    Jon Morosi tweeted that the Brewers are engaged in conversations with the White Sox about their ace starter, Garrett Crochet.
    This... is surprising, to say the least. I also find it unlikely that anything will come of it.
    Morosi is not the most reliable rumormonger, for starters. More importantly, there are a dozen vultures circling on the White Sox lefty, including teams such as the Cubs and Red Sox. The Red Sox in particular seem eager to spend as much money as possible and they have the farm system to acquire nearly any player in baseball if they put their mind to it.
    With that said, no one should put anything past Brewers GM Matt Arnold at this point. He has a well-earned reputation as one of the shrewdest negotiators in baseball and routinely pulls off deals no one expects.
    Brock Beauchamp
    MLB Trade Rumors wrote up a list of potential trade fits for Brewers closer Devin Williams.
    In typical MLBTR fashion, it's a good read. I'm skeptical of some of their choices but there are a few worth noting:
    Philadelphia Phillies: other than the fact both the Phillies and Brewers are in the National League and therefore are indirectly competing for the same playoff spots, this fit makes the most sense. The Phillies under Dave Dombrowski are always looking to wheel and deal and their bullpen is perennial a weak spot.
    New York Yankees: after getting egg on their face and losing Juan Soto to the fellas in Queens, no one knows how the Bombers are going to react. They could be in on literally everybody at this point.
    Kansas City Royals & Detroit Tigers: after surprise runs into October last season, either of these teams could be in the mix for Williams as they step into a long contention window. In particular, keep an eye on the Royals. They're trying desperately to convince the locals to build them a new downtown stadium and have shown a willingness to spend to buy some goodwill.
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