How Can the Brewers Bullpen Balance "Win Tonight" with "Win In October"?

Twenty-one games into the season, key relievers Aaron Ashby, Ángel Zerpa and Abner Uribe are all on pace for 85 or more innings. As all three are hurlers the Brewers expect to rely on heavily as the year develops, their early usage raises some concerns. Ashby was the most-used reliever in baseball this time last week, while Uribe and Zerpa have each pitched 10 times already.

The first month of the season traditionally sees a more varied use of the bullpen arms. In one sense, the Brewers have this, with five different pitchers already at 10 innings or more. However, while DL Hall and Grant Anderson have been innings sponges, too much work is being left to the guys the team needs to be fresh come October.

Because of a few short starts and a lack of trust in Jake Woodford, the Brewers haven't been able to stay away from their 'A' relievers even on days when they tried to do so. As a perfect example, over the weekend, Woodford forced Pat Murphy to use Uribe after the Brewers gave him a five-run lead with six outs to go. Woodford managed just four outs and left a bases-loaded mess for Uribe to clean up, with the winning run at the plate. 

What constitutes bullpen overuse?
One of the best ways to limit bullpen mismanagement is to provide a variety of capable, reliable arms who can get outs in almost any situation. With a cap of 13 pitchers on a roster (unless you have Shohei Ohtani, in which case you can have 14), the Brewers are limited to eight relievers. Using spot starters and pushing back starters in the rotation can bring this down to seven options; that's when things get especially tenuous. 

With a rubber arm whom you trust to go multiple innings on either side of a blowout, you can get away with this. Since Woodford has been untrustworthy and Hall has been inefficient, though, Murphy has been compelled to go with more back-to-backs from key pitchers. Putting this in perspective, Milwaukee threw 634 2/3 innings out of the pen last year, a number dropping to 600 when you exclude the innings pitched by a starter following an opener (mostly Quinn Priester). That means that the average game requires 11 outs from the bullpen; getting them out of six or even seven guys consistently quickly gets thorny.

Looking at last year's collection of guys who cycled through (Tobias Myers, Connor Thomas, Bryan Hudson, Erick Fedde, Rob Zastryzny, et al), there are probably 120 innings of work picked up from relievers covering short-term injuries. For the other 480 innings, things can get dicey; if you have just six relievers splitting the load, that would be 80 innings per arm, whereas with a full trusted cohort of eight relievers, you average a far more acceptable 60 innings per reliever.

Here's how Uribe's swinging strike rate trended throughout 2025; pay attention to what happened after he surpassed 65 appearances:

That range—60-65 games—is the benchmark the Brewers should strive for, noting how Uribe struggled after that point. We saw similar declines with Ashby and Jared Koenig after a heavy workload.

How Do The Brewers Limit Such Innings?
There is one very obvious solution. The Brewers will want someone capable of going multiple innings, especially in the middle of games, who can be trusted to prevent the floodgates opening either with a big lead or a larger deficit. It would need to be someone who is stretched out, with solid stuff and command to get outs consistently. Properly conceptualized, this is the perfect place in which to give a young hurler some time and space to develop in the big leagues.

The Brewers have a number of such arms, being absolutely blessed with rotation depth. Priester is on the mend and building back up with Nashville now, targeting a return around the middle of May. When he returns, Chad Patrick or Brandon Sproat could be pushed to the bullpen. In the meantime, Robert Gasser, Logan Henderson and Shane Drohan could all fill this role with aplomb. 

Each of them are on the 40-man roster; has appeared for the Brewers; and is stretched out enough to take on the workload. At the front of the list might be Drohan, who notably entered his last "start" behind an opener. He'd seem to be the best situated for that kind of role, based on a number of factors.

Logan Henderson's unique, effective fastball and deadly changeup would be another option, coming from the right side with the type of stuff that can mow hitters down. It limits his exposure the third time through an order, but can give him space to test his slurve in the big leagues while leaning on his bread-and-butter offerings.

The Brewers' plethora of young, talented arms need some big-league experience to continue their development. Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes filled similar long-relief roles when they were called up and did so with aplomb, allowing them to develop and assimilate while priming them to break out the following season. More importantly, they ate innings and provided results.

Murphy's circle of trust is a small, closed circle. Breaking into it isn't easy. Woodford is almost certainly not getting in there now, and the last man in the bullpen is more important than one would think. Having a viable, high-quality arm for multi-inning relief alongside Ashby might be the best solution for all involved, and each of Henderson, Drohan and Gasser could provide that. 

How do you assess the Brewers early bullpen usage? Can you see them using one of their younger arms to fill a need, or would they prefer to keep them stretched out in Nashville? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!