Aaron Civale Was the Perfect First Move for the 2024 Brewers. What's the Perfect Next Move?

When news of Aaron Civale being traded to the Brewers hit Baseball Twitter Wednesday morning, it made for a few nervous moments among lovers of Brewers prospects. As it turned out, though, that agita was wasted energy, because all the Crew surrendered in the trade was Gregory Barrios, an infielder for the Timber Rattlers who has youth and athleticism to recommend him, but who didn't figure prominently into the team's future plans even before being dealt.

It was possible to extract Civale from the Rays in exchange for Barrios not only because the veteran right-handed hurler is having a superficially tough season (5.07 ERA, 16 home runs allowed), but because the Rays were in no position to consider Civale even a medium-term asset. He's under team control through 2025, but in 2024, he's making $4.9 million as an arbitration-eligible player, and that salary will rise next year. When the Rays acquire pitchers like Civale (as they did last summer), they're thinking about how they can help that player make immediate improvements, and then about extending them on a team-friendly long-term deal.

The improvement didn't materialize for Civale; the Rays appear to have taken the wrong tack in trying to unlock his talent. Because the fit of player and team didn't bear immediate fruit, though, they also missed their chance to get together on a mutually agreeable contract. The Rays never intended to pay Civale $7 million or more in 2025 and then watch him leave via free agency, which quickly became the most likely outcome, so they were ready to move on and willing to accept a fairly low-wattage prospect in return.

For the Brewers, that circumstance is a boondoggle. They not only got Civale for a player whom they're unlikely to miss, but plugged one key hole in their résumé as a serious World Series contender without sacrificing the ability to plug another one via some other move in the next few weeks. Civale, from whom they surely expect to get reliable innings and a better level of performance, stabilizes their rotation even beyond this season, which gives them more flexibility and more opportunities.

This deal coincides with this week's release of a couple of midseason updates to national top prospect lists, led by MLB Pipeline and Baseball America. The Brewers placed a trio of players (Jeferson Quero, Jacob Misiorowski, and Tyler Black) on each list and a fourth (Cooper Pratt) at the back end of one of them. That reflects the reality that their farm system is roughly average, and maybe a hair below that, but that, in turn, only reflects the fact that the team has graduated a handful of good players recently, including and especially Jackson Chourio, Joey Ortiz, Brice Turang, and Sal Frelick.

Obtaining Civale didn't rob Matt Arnold and company of the talent they need to make an even bigger acquisition this month, and all those young players (not just the aforementioned ones, but pitchers who have had a tougher time yet might have bright futures, like DL Hall) make it an especially good time to trade from the depth they still enjoy. Prospects are never fully superfluous, for a team with the constraints the Brewers face, but they have long-term answers at a number of positions and the ninth-richest bonus pool allotment for the upcoming MLB Draft.

There's been a reluctance, even and especially among Brewers fans themselves, to imagine and embrace that this might be the team who finally breaks through and wins a National League pennant--let alone what would be the first championship in franchise history. Even as many fans have enjoyed the team's fantastic first half, they've held some wariness in reserve, and they've bristled at the suggestion that they would go all-in to win this season. When Ken Rosenthal mentioned something along those lines on a YouTube show recently, it caused a kerfuffle at least as large as the one in response to his musings on whether the team would trade their starting shortstop, a month ago.

Part of that problem is lexicographical. We don't have a much better term than 'all-in' to connote aggressive pursuit of a championship through deadline upgrades, but in truth, anything the Brewers would do this month would stop far short of being a full-fledged bet on this season, alone. The Brewers will be good in 2025 and beyond, or not, based not on whether they make trades that deplete their current stock of prospect talent, but on whether they can stay ahead of much of the rest of the league in scouting and player development, and on whether they continue to sniff out and pounce on opportunities like the one they seized in acquiring Civale. The Chourio-Christian Yelich-William Contreras-Freddy Peralta core of this team will not be threatened by expending the resource that is their trove of young talent this month, even though every trade that degrades the farm does put more pressure on them to get the next season's round of draft picks and international signings correct.

I hope Brewers fans realize that this team is not a fluke, and that they're good enough to go deep into October. Although they're well ahead of the rest of the NL Central in the fundamentals of their organization (including and especially their talent base), that condition is not guaranteed to persist in perpetuity. In fact, it's unlikely to. The Cardinals don't have enough in the tank to catch this team this year, especially now that the Crew have added Civale, but they're going to catch up a bit soon. The Pirates and Reds are drawing incrementally closer to having a critical mass of talent and turning the corner all the time, and the Cubs (though mismanaged and disorganized right now) have a massive financial edge that could accelerate their return to contention. 

The Brewers should not, by any means, be treating this as a transitional year or the pinch point between two wider windows of contention. Their window is right now. It's wide open, and might never be more so again. There's no guarantee that this team will ever win a championship, but right now (while they have Willy Adames, for whom they can collect a solid draft pick this winter anyway; and Devin Williams, who might be gone by next Opening Day; and Rhys Hoskins, who might well be here again in 2025 but is only getting older) they have a real chance to do so. Civale was a good target. He draws them slightly nearer to that goal.

Now, they should be grateful that acquiring him was so painless, and brace themselves for the necessary but profitable pain of another, bigger trade before the month is over. This pitching staff could use one more injection of dominance, especially if a rental starter emerges as a candidate, and the lineup could use a little bit more reinforcement. This is no time to stare fixedly at a glorious future that might never arrive. It's time to forge that glory right here in the present.