Brewers Take What Comes to Them at 2024 MLB Trade Deadline

In the most basic sense, the Brewers checked off the top item on their trade deadline wishlist: innings.

Matt Arnold told Milwaukee media last week that length was still his club's most pressing need, even after acquiring righthander Aaron Civale from the Rays earlier this month. In the following days, he added another length option in Frankie Montas, and a controllable reliever with upside, in Nick Mears.

"By and large, yeah," Arnold said, when asked if he felt the Brewers accomplished what they were hoping to at the deadline. "First of all, I think we believe in the group we have first and foremost, and then the ability to add multiple starters with Civale and Frankie, and also a reliever that we like a lot in Mears, I think we accomplished what we had hoped to this deadline."

Still, some fans may perceive Milwaukee's moves as underwhelming. While Mears has the S-tier stuff to bolster the back end of the bullpen in 2024 and beyond, Civale and Montas are not moving needles in the rotation. There's a case to be made that the Brewers could receive the same value by promoting a minor-league arm or making a smaller acquisition as they will from Montas.

Was Milwaukee's deadline underwhelming? Sure. Was it surprising? No.

This was not a favorable year to be in the market for starting pitching at the deadline. In many cases, the lack of true sellers drove up prices for available arms. Yusei Kikuchi, who has pitched to an 85 ERA+ this year, went for a trio of high-level Astros prospects. Trevor Rogers, who comes with two more years of control beyond 2024 but has an 87 ERA+ since the start of 2022 while pitching with diminished stuff, cost the Orioles former second-round draft picks Connor Norby and Kyle Stowers. In other cases, the prices were high enough to keep marquee arms like Garrett Crochet from moving at all.

The Brewers also could have used a left-handed bat to bolster a lineup that will miss Christian Yelich for an extended period of time, but movement was sparse on that front. Most of the potential fits (Joc Pederson, LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, and Brandon Lowe) stayed put.

The approach at this time of year under Arnold (and David Stearns before him) has remained consistent. The Brewers attempt to strike a delicate balance of today and tomorrow with each acquisition. The club's goal is to win a World Series, but it maintains that the best vehicle to a championship is to make the postseason as many years as possible, with the expectation that they will eventually be the beneficiaries of the short-sample randomness that contributes to a successful October and November run.

At the end of the day, this year's market was incompatible with the front office's approach, and there was no motivation to deviate from it based on the club's status. With a seven-game lead in the NL Central when the deadline hit, Milwaukee has an 89% chance of making the postseason and an 83% chance of winning the division. The hope is that adding quantity in the rotation will keep their floor high enough to secure that playoff berth.