Forum Friday: Innings Limits, Trading Pitchers, & Tarik Skubal

Milwaukee comfortably leads the NL Central as we start the month of June. The Brewer Fanatic community takes nothing for granted during the regular season, but already, our attention is moving toward the August trade deadline, September workloads and strategizing for the postseason. Come join the discussions in three of the best forum thread topics from the past week.

Brewers: Young pitching...innings pitched...September and October

Milwaukee's starting rotation has been anchored by a pair of 24-year-old phenoms in Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison. The potential problem is that neither has thrown a full season's worth of innings at the major league level. Misiorowski is presently on pace for nearly 200 innings pitched after completing 141.1 IP last year, including time in Nashville. Harrison is trending toward 150 innings compared to 112 IP in 2025 and spent most of the season in Triple-A.

A deep playoff run could add 20 additional high-leverage innings, too. What should the Brewers do to balance regular-season competitiveness with postseason readiness? Milwaukee is currently tied in the loss column with Los Angeles and earning a first-round bye would be a huge advantage. At the same time, the Brewers seemed exhausted by the time they faced the Dodgers last year. Naturally, the Dodgers are expecting veteran pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell to return later this season to reinforce an already strong rotation. It would be disappointing for Milwaukee's young stars to fade when Los Angeles is again peaking.

Brewers: A discussion on trading starting pitchers with a year of control remaining

Brewers fans understand the formula of trading away top starting pitchers before free agency in order to gain six years of affordable control from younger prospects. The Brewer Fanatic community largely agrees that the trade of Corbin Burnes for Joey Ortiz and DL Hall could be fine. Would keeping Burnes for the 2024 playoff run have made a meaningful difference? The game one loss to the Mets had Freddy Peralta allow three earned runs over four innings. For Baltimore, Burnes allowed just one earned run over eight innings for his lone 2024 playoff start.

The Peralta trade evaluation is less clear. Brandon Sproat has flashed enormous potential but does not yet have results to show for it. Jett Williams is heating up in Nashville, but that does not help the infield or outfield holes in Milwaukee. Peralta has performed around his career averages this season. Freddy will provide 170 reliable regular-season innings but there is little evidence that would suggest he would dominate an opponent in October.

At what point does Milwaukee's strategy move from acquiring organizational depth to utilizing our prospects to win now? Or, at the very least, keep the starting pitchers we already have for one more run at a championship? The long run will someday be long enough.

Rumors: Tarik Skubal

Remember when the Brewers traded for CC Sabathia and Zach Greinke? Wouldn't it be fun if Milwaukee acquired a healthy Tarik Skubal? Except this time, instead of reinforcing a playoff rotation of Dave Bush and Jeff Suppan or Randy Wolf and Shaun Marcum, the Brewers add an ace to support Misiorowski and Harrison? 

The Brewer Fanatic community knows the value of our prospects as well as anyone. At the same time, if Matt Arnold has the ability to rent Tarik Skubal without trading Jesús Made or Luis Peña, should he do it? Doug Melvin would. That doesn't automatically make it the right move for the organization now or for the future, though.