Landing Jack Flaherty Would Transform the Brewers' Playoff Rotation

For the tenth year in a row, the Detroit Tigers are going to miss the playoffs. With the vultures already circling, waiting for their chance to acquire the team’s lefty ace, Tarik Skubal, teammate Jack Flaherty might be an undervalued short-term starter. That is exactly what the Brewers should be pursuing for the final portion of the 2024 regular season.

What He Does Well
When he’s at his best, Flaherty attacks the strike zone with extreme prejudice. His whiff, strikeout, and walk rates are all in the top decile of qualified pitchers. The tradeoff is that he gives up more barrels and gets fewer ground balls than he would like, but his 2.95 ERA and 0.96 WHIP over 100 ⅔ innings have shown that he’s winning more battles than he's losing.

The years since his breakout 2019 campaign have been rocky. He’s only managed to pitch more than 80 innings once, and from 2020-2023, he averaged a 4.42 ERA. His strikeout rate remained high, at 24.1%, but he was giving up far too many baserunners, with a WHIP of 1.40 in that span.

What’s he doing differently this year? His knuckle-curve has posted pretty consistent results since he's arrived in the big leagues, even when times were the toughest. However, 2024 seems to be the first time in a while that both his four-seam fastball and slider have been competitive pitches. His fastball doesn’t blow up the radar gun and averages just under 94 mph, but he’s commanding it much better this year, attacking the outside edges of the strike zone against lefties and righties. It has a 25.0% whiff rate and a 31.0% strikeout rate.

His slider saw massive regression in 2023 and was a big reason for many of his rough outings. In 2024, he’s placing the pitch closer to the bottom of the zone, getting a whiff rate of 39.1% and a strikeout rate of 31.0%--massive improvements over his 26,5% and 15.0% numbers last year. Better command of the offering has made it a weapon against lefties, whereas it was a huge source of vulnerability against them in 2023.

What He Doesn’t Do As Well
Despite this year’s improvements, Flaherty still suffers from the same drawback of giving up hard contact, even on his best pitches. Even with high strikeout rates on both his fastball and slider, opposing batters still have ISO numbers of .151 and .221, respectively, against them. Because he lacks the velocity that creates margin for error, poor command can lead to the ball leaking into a hitter's nitro zone and getting crushed.

Contract Status
Flaherty is on a one-year, $14 million contract, and will be a free agent in 2025. It has been a great walk year for the young righty, and he's raised his stock considerably. He’ll probably sign a sizable contract with a team other than the Brewers, but Milwaukee really only needs him for the remainder of this season.

With the Tigers still very much in a rebuild and having almost no use for the second-best starter on the team, he’s a great trade piece. He may not be as valuable or dazzling as Skubal, but he’d be a heck of a lot cheaper. Come October, he might be the second starter the Crew needs to make a deeper run into the playoffs.