Do the Brewers Need a Late-Offseason Pitching Infusion?

Projection systems at multiple sites have rolled out this week, with full forecasts not only for individual players but for teams. At both Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs, the Cubs are early favorites to win the NL Central, albeit by a much wider margin at the former than at the latter. Impressive projections for stars Kyle Tucker, Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele have attracted attention when it comes to the Cubs, but they also have a secondary advantage, only partially captured by the PECOTA-projected standings: that model believes they have some of baseball's best pitching depth.

The Brewers are fine in their own right, at a quick glance. Using the too-blunt dividing line of a 100 DRA- (where 100 is average and lower is better), Milwaukee is projected to use fewer "bad" pitchers than the Cubs this season. In fact, they're tied for the fewest such pitchers on their PECOTA Depth Charts, with seven, along with the Orioles and Dodgers. 

As you can see, though, many teams—including the Cubs—have more pitchers who are projected to be average or better than do the Brewers, at this moment. The Dodgers, Cubs, Orioles, Mets, Rays, and Twins all have them beat in that regard, and that does matter. One thing projection systems tend to miss is the risk of injuries and what happens when they hit. Focusing on the battle for NL Central supremacy, the Cubs are better prepared for that eventuality than the Brewers are.

Of course, there are caveats to this. If the Cubs' Depth Charts show 24 different pitchers and the Brewers' only show 20, the implication is that the Cubs are further into their organizational depth already than is the Crew. Indeed, just among names not appearing on the Milwaukee Depth Charts right now, Logan Henderson, Sam Gardner and Vinny Nittoli project to be average or better, so the well might run deeper than the projection system fully reflects. On the other hand, the Cubs also have a few more arms beyond the edges of their Depth Charts who project well, like Ben Heller and Brooks Kriske.

PECOTA doesn't like Jacob Misiorowski, which a Brewers fan can certainly dismiss if they choose. On the other hand, it believes so much (an 83 DRA-) in Brandon Woodruff that even an optimist is likely to raise an eyebrow; the model can't see that Woodruff's lost season was due to an injury with a much worse prognosis for the long run than (say) Tommy John surgery.

The free-agent pickings have gotten slim, when it comes to hitters. Should the Brewers spend their remaining financial flexibility this offseason on bolstering their pitching depth, instead?

There are five starters on the staff projected to deliver better-than-average work this year: Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Nestor Cortes, Tobias Myers, and Woodruff. However, we already know that Woodruff is unlikely to start the season in that rotation, and PECOTA is down on both Aaron Ashby and DL Hall. Even if either or both of them are good, after all, it might be in relief. Thus, the Brewers could clearly use a starter—someone on or even above the level of Jakob Junis, whom they brought in late last winter to backstop the rotation and act as a potential long reliever.

A handful of pitchers with average-plus projections who can handle that kind of volume are still available. Between their competitive-balance pick and the compensation pick they got when they were unable to sign Chris Levonas last summer, the Brewers have a chance to sign a loaded draft class again this year, which makes them unlikely to sign Nick Pivetta and give up a draft pick. Even beyond Pivetta, though, there's Andrew Heaney, whose bugaboo for most of his career has been health—but who was healthy and fairly effective in 2023 and 2024.

Heaney feels unlikely to get multiple years here in the final few weeks of the offseason, unless he's willing to take a seven-digit annual salary, rather than one more in the neighborhood of $12 million. If the Brewers could sign him for $18-20 million on a two-year deal, it would be fairly tempting to do so, taking pressure off of Woodruff and the younger arms who will hope to filter into the rotation later in the year.

Meanwhile, there are a fistful of solid relievers still on the market. Among them are Kenley Jansen, Colin Poche, Phil Maton, and David Robertson, but that's just the higher-rent sector. It's not hard to imagine the Brewers spending $2-3 million on a low-grade bullpen piece who wouldn't get in the way of their existing core of eight solid relievers (Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, Abner Uribe, Jared Koenig, Nick Mears, Elvis Peguero, Grant Anderson, and Craig Yoho). The Brewers also have guys on whom PECOTA is less bullish, like Bryan Hudson, Ashby, and Hall, but enough of that group can be optioned or placed on the injured list to allow the insertion of another strong relief option.

Quality pitching depth gives a team insulation against injury trouble and makes them more likely to outperform projections. For the last two years, incredible (often unexpected) pitching depth has been a huge driver of the Brewers' success. Now, though, the team might need an external infusion of talent to keep up with a Cubs team that ferociously attacked its own dearth of depth this winter.