How Badly Do Brewers Need to Bolster Pitching Depth Before Season Begins?

Right-handed reliever J.B. Bukauskas will undergo surgery on his lat muscle and miss the entire 2025 season, according to Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It's the latest setback in a spring that has seen several Brewers hurlers go down with injuries of varying severity. With Bukauskas no longer in the mix, the team has one fewer arm vying for a place on the Opening Day roster, although he was a long shot to win one of those jobs. It was more likely that Bukauskas would be one of the several mid-season replacements to whom the Brewers have turned during the last few seasons, often with season-saving results.

In general, it's safe to say that the Crew's pitching depth is a bit diminished, relative to last season. They've brought in a few arms, like Elvin Rodríguez and Tyler Alexander, in free agency, but the only truly reliable hurler they've acquired so far is Nestor Cortes, a key piece of the Devin Williams trade. A month away from Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, the Crew have a solid starting five, but only if they avoid any further attrition and Aaron Ashby (or Alexander) rounds into form to lock up the fifth spot. Meanwhile, their bullpen is noticeably weaker, without the bracing presence of Hoby Milner or Williams. At the moment, they're exposed to much more risk of a wobbly pitching staff than they were in either of the last two seasons, even as those teams, too, suffered major losses.

The fixes for that problem are still out there—if the team views it as a problem, in the first place. Though Kyle Finnegan re-signed with the Nationals Tuesday (taking arguably the best remaining relief arm off the market), David Robertson, Phil Maton, and ex-Brewer Andrew Chafin highlight a small cluster of solid relievers who could step into the mix and make that unit more reliable. Meanwhile, José Quintana, Spencer Turnbull and Kyle Gibson are available as could-be innings eaters for the starting rotation, all at (presumably) a clearance price. 

Robertson would have a case for being the second-best reliever on the team from the moment he walked in the door. He's an especially appealing target, not only because he was so good in 2024 (72 innings, 99 strikeouts against just 27 walks, a 3.00 ERA), but because the bullpen needs precisely that kind of presence. Trevor Megill is on a slightly delayed schedule in camp, which is especially ominous in his case because he has a spotty health history. While everyone is excited about the prospect of a Craig Yoho emergence, no one in the organization will want to see that happen as the closer right out of the gate. One more reliever who profiles as a high-leverage weapon, rather than rubber-armed depth, could go a very long way for this group.

Quintana, Turnbull and Gibson all project to be better than Ashby, according to PECOTA, and both Quintana and Gibson are durable starters who would reduce the risk of the team needing to call upon a young or underqualified starter early in the season. The Brewers aren't looking like world-beaters right now, and while they're likely to outplay their unimpressive projections, they're still not favorites to take the NL Central. They need a bit of reinforcement, and there are some easy avenues for that type of small but clear improvement still open for them. If they want to avoid a mid-May scramble or a July overpay for needed backfilling, they should make a small but crucial investment now.