Brewers Sign Rhys Hoskins to Two-Year, $34-Million Deal, Add Thunder

Former Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins has signed a two-year deal with the Brewers, worth $34 million. Jeff Passan dropped the late-night bomb.

BREAKING: First baseman Rhys Hoskins and the Milwaukee Brewers are finalizing a two-year, $34 million contract with an opt-out after the first season, sources tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 24, 2024

This is the kind of deal for which Tim Muma pleaded right here, Tuesday morning. It's a major boost for an offense that was short on power last season, and a terrific fit for a team who previously planned (absent a superior alternative) to start Jake Bauers at first base quite a bit. Hoskins, for his part, gets a player-friendly structure, with the right to hit free agency again next winter or extend his stay for a second season, according to his performance and how he and agent Scott Boras perceive the market.

Whether he'll want to is hard to divine at the moment, for the same reasons that led to his being available at this price. Hoskins lost all of the 2023 season after suffering a major knee injury during spring training. Already a defensively middling first baseman, he figures to be limited to that position and/or DH duties, and he will turn 31 in March. The structure of this contract nods toward the fact that, unlike Boras client Cody Bellinger (who took a straight one-year deal last winter), Hoskins is at some risk of never getting his free-agent megadeal, even if he recovers relatively well from the injury and has a typical season for him this year. 

On Tuesday at Baseball Prospectus, Daniel Epstein wrote a good piece documenting and visualizing the dampening effect of age on free agents' earning power, especially once they reach age 31. Hoskins was never going to take a one-year deal without at least some measure of protection for him, but nor were the Brewers going to sign him to a long-term deal, in the shadow of that age milestone. This pact finds a happy medium.

If he does return at full strength (as expected), Hoskins would be a game-changing force for the heart of the Milwaukee batting order. This was a team who put the ball on the ground as much as any in baseball last year, including and especially at the top of the lineup. That not only meant too few home runs, but led to a lot of rally-killing double plays. Hoskins is one of the game's great fly-ball sluggers, getting to his power by driving the ball to his pull field with elevation on a consistent basis. Pencil him into the third or fourth spot in the batting order, and mentally, shift Bauers to the DH spot. This lineup just got much more potent.

The most interesting thing about the move, however, might be the mystery of what comes next. As Muma noted in his piece Tuesday morning, Hoskins barely fits into the best available estimates of the Brewers' 2024 payroll, gfven the limitations they face due to ownership's approach to the uncertain TV rights negotiations ahead. Will this addition be the last the team makes this offseason? Does it represent something of an all-in posture, whereby the club will keep Willy Adames, Corbin Burnes, and Devin Williams (but probably lose two of those three to free agency next winter, while also risking Hoskins opting out and wrestling with when to trade Williams)? Or might there be another shoe yet to drop?

It's impossible to know for sure, but in the moment, it feels more like the former scenario. Hoskins completes a roster good enough to walk confidently into the yard where the fight for the NL Central will happen, and by the middle of the summer or the onset of fall, it could be a good enough one to upset people en route to the World Series. At the very least, this should banish from everyone's mind any remnants of the notion that the team would sell off Adames, Burnes, and Williams, or even any two of them, before Opening Day. The Brewers remain the team to beat in the Central, and this move shows that they know it.

Are you excited about Hoskins? Where do you see the Brewers turning next? Jump into the comments and discuss.