After Seeing Glimpses of Brilliance in Inconsistent First Stint, Brewers Send Craig Yoho to Regroup in Minors

Less than two weeks after a highly anticipated big-league debut, Craig Yoho is returning to Nashville. The Brewers optioned the changeup specialist to Triple-A on Saturday and recalled right-hander Elvin Rodríguez.

It was a shorter first stay than anyone hoped. The Brewers needed a fresh arm, and Yoho was the optionable reliever with the heaviest recent workload. However, he likely would have stayed, were it not for an inconsistent inaugural stint capped by a five-run outing against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday.

Spotty command was the only legitimate knock against Yoho's dominant minor-league performance, and he issued four walks in that fateful appearance. Unsurprisingly, Pat Murphy said the Brewers seek improvement on that front.

"You can't just rely on a changeup for a strike," Murphy said. "He's got to do more than that. So he's got to locate the heater better, and it's got to be money. He's got to be a strike-throwing machine. Then the changeup comes into play a lot better."

There is a give-and-take for pitchers like Yoho, who creates extreme movement with his secondary pitches. His stuff can be nearly impossible to hit when he's on, but it's also difficult to keep it in the strike zone. Like Devin Williams, who also throws a screwball-like changeup, Yoho will always have to work around free passes, even after the Brewers nudged him toward the middle of the rubber this spring to get him in the zone more.

"Knowing where your hand is when you throw," Murphy said. "That sounds remedial, but actually feeling where it is every time, that's going to lead to better command. And the way he throws and kind of comes off it, he kind of loses where that is sometimes. So yeah, he might be a guy that always deals with this type of thing."

When Yoho was in the strike zone, his stuff played as expected. According to Statcast, big-league opponents posted an in-zone contact rate of 81.6% against Yoho, a similar rate to Triple-A hitters. Only 35.3% of batted balls hit against him were hard-hit (95 mph or faster off the bat), and 52.9% were ground balls. The Miguel Vargas home run against his changeup was a 94.6-mph fly ball with an expected batting average of .110.

The difference was that Yoho stopped inducing poor swings on pitches outside the zone. His Triple-A chase rate was 31.6%, but that figure fell to 20.5% after his promotion. That was mainly due to so many misses well off the plate, but could also point to tunneling and sequencing issues.

His outing in Chicago was not only Yoho's first blow-up inning in the big leagues, but the first time he struggled that badly in a professional game. He posted a 1.16 ERA in the minors, where he never allowed more than three earned runs in an appearance. Thursday raised personally unprecedented adversity for the righthander, a fact that is not lost on Murphy.

"The first question I asked him (Friday night) was, 'Has that changeup ever been hit for a home run?' And he went, 'No, I don't think so,'" Murphy said. "So think about it. What a great experience for the kid. You hate to have it, but a great experience. He's the type of kid I really think will respond. I think he's just really locked in."

For now, the Brewers believe that Yoho's ability to respond is best tested back in Triple A.

"You can't risk it in a situation we're in," Murphy said, alluding to his club's need to get going after an inconsistent first month. "We're just trying to, right now, just bob and weave and survive and not lose too many rounds—and then be in position to win a decision."

Yoho remains very much a part of the big-league bullpen picture. He's closer to helping than his surface-level numbers suggest, which means he could return soon if the Brewers see progress.

"Yoho is a big part of our future," Murphy said. "I really think so. I think we have something there that's pretty special. He's an incredible kid."