Hear Me Out: The Brewers Should Sign Rowdy Tellez for the Last Game of the Season

It’s a long season. Somebody has to be dinged up. You mean to tell me that Rhys Hoskins couldn’t use a day to rest his aching knee? If not Hoskins, then surely somebody’s back is acting up. Somebody’s dogs are barking. Jake Bauers has looked a little slow lately, and he’s normally so speedy! It’s not important who needs the IL stint that only causes them to miss the last game of the season on Sunday. . What’s important is that it would create some roster space and allow the Brewers to make an important waiver-wire acquisition: Rowdy Tellez.

Rowdy Tellez, whom the Pirates cravenly designated for assignment literally the day before he could have qualified for a $200,000 contract bonus. Rowdy Tellez, who spent the best and most productive year of his career with the Brewers in 2022 (and also the worst and least productive year of his career with the Brewers in 2023, but that’s beside the point). Rowdy Tellez, who is big and gregarious and beloved by all, got absolutely hosed. Tellez’s contract called for the bonus if he reached 425 plate appearances, so naturally, he was cut when he reached 421, leaving him 4 PAs, or one game, short of the benchmark.  

I’m not saying that we should take pity on Tellez or his bank account. According to FanGraphs, Tellez has accrued exactly 0.0 WAR over his seven years in the big leagues. He has been the definition of replacement level, and in exchange for his formidable fungibility, the 29-year-old Tellez has been paid more than $12 million. I’ve been a replacement-level player at a whole lot of jobs, and none of my paychecks ever had that many commas. Still, there’s no universe in which he didn’t just get screwed over royally, and the person who clawed back that money needs it a whole lot less than Tellez does.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington categorically denied that the bonus had anything to do with the decision. “No factor at all,” he told reporters. “Zero factor in the decision. Aware of it, certainly. I’m aware of the contracts that all players have. And no, I’m not concerned. If you’re asking about optics going forward and how it affects business and things like that, no. Contracts are negotiated in good faith.”

That’s some serious rhetorical firepower, but quite simply, it’s hard to imagine that it’s the truth. First of all, Tellez got off to an undeniably rough start, but since June – a stretch of 84 games – he’s run a 120 wRC+. Not only did that make him Pittsburgh’s third-best hitter over that period, it marked the best 84-game stretch of his career, aside from some stretches during his career year in 2022. That is to say: over the past four months, the Pirates got the absolute best-case scenario that they could have imagined when they signed Tellez. So when Cherington says, “We feel like we gave Rowdy lots of opportunity here this year,” feel free to call BS.  

The second factor is just as obvious: the Pirates are cheap. Bob Nutting is a cheapskate. There’s no other way to say it. For years, the Pirates have been treated like a source of passive income, taking checks from television contracts, revenue sharing, and MLB Advanced Media, then investing the bare minimum in the club and lobbying to drop the bare minimum even lower. There is certainly no reason to extend them the benefit of the doubt. There is no reason to doubt.So that’s the situation, but here's where things get fun. I’m not arguing that the Brewers should sign Tellez out of pity or out of the goodness of their heart – to be clear, I would love it if they signed him for those reasons, but I just happen to think that there are other reasons they would find more compelling.