Passed Over For the Latest Bullpen Promotion, Bryan Hudson's Outlook Remains Uncertain

When the Brewers added a fresh arm to their bullpen ahead of Friday night’s game, they passed over one of their former high-leverage relievers who has spent much of the month in Triple-A. Kevin Herget, not Bryan Hudson, got the call to replace Enoli Paredes.

The Brewers optioned Hudson to Nashville on September 3. He’s surpassed the requisite 10 days in the minor leagues but remains there as the regular season nears its conclusion.

The results suggest Hudson has earned his way back to the roster. In four innings since the reassignment, he has struck out seven (a 41.2% strikeout rate), walked none, and allowed just one run.

Results are not the focus, though. The Brewers sent Hudson down for a reset amid concerns over his declining stuff. His Triple-A appearances, all one-inning stints, have been deliberately staggered with multiple days of rest in between. The goal is to restore Hudson’s stuff in a more controlled environment.

“He’s working on stuff, and it’s going in the right direction,” Pat Murphy said. “He didn’t have a great one the other night, but it was going in the right direction, so I anticipate you’ll see him back [this year].”

While most of the public attention went to his declining fastball velocity, the degradation of Hudson’s sweeper, which lost nearly 5 mph from July to September, always looked like the main driver behind the move. Murphy confirmed on Friday that it’s part of the equation, but it would still be obvious if he hadn’t.

At the time of his optioning, Hudson had thrown the sweeper just 15.7% of the time since the start of August. He deployed it at a 25.3% rate until the All-Star break. During this Triple-A stint, he’s thrown as many sweepers as four-seam fastballs, a whopping 45.6% usage rate.

This is not a results-oriented strategy; Hudson has never used his breaking ball like this. The Brewers want him to rediscover a better version of the pitch and have prescribed significant in-game reps.

Murphy’s report that things are trending in the right direction is only partially true. Hudson’s fastball is improving, but his sweeper is not.

Raw velocity has never been what makes Hudson’s fastball effective. Greater gains would be welcome, but they’re not necessary. The takeaways are that Hudson’s slowest fastballs are no longer quite as slow and that he’s gained a couple of inches of carry through the zone. It now looks to a lefty as if it’s boring in on him slightly more.

The sweeper, on the other hand, remains stagnant. The velocity is unchanged, and for a big breaking ball, the shape is not impactfully different from where it was since the start of August.

For that reason, Hudson’s outlook remains unclear. The Brewers will make decisions based on his projected future production, not his past output from when his stuff was better.

“We don’t just bring him back because, quote, ‘You deserve it because you pitched so well early,’” Murphy said. “You’ve got to pitch well again. That’s what we’re looking for.”

While Murphy indicated that the Brewers prefer to have him back this year, he also implied that the organization does not regard the pitcher Hudson was when it optioned him as one of their top eight relievers. At the very least, it doesn’t seem to have nearly the same level of confidence in the second-half version of Hudson as it did in his former self.

“If you’re just going to go by how he pitched recently and how his stuff was so down, then maybe he doesn’t pitch,” Murphy said. “Does he just want to be on the team and doesn’t pitch, or does he want to be effective?”

The Brewers likely have not seen everything they were hoping to in Hudson’s Triple-A stint and may not feel he’s ready to return. That said, the clock is running short. With the Triple-A season concluding on Sunday and just seven big-league games remaining before the postseason, the club must soon make a decision. Is a diminished Hudson worth carrying in a playoff bullpen?

Hudson could rejoin the Brewers before Sunday’s game, as Herget has thrown a combined 36 pitches while appearing in back-to-back contests since his promotion. Either way, the fact that he was not the choice on Friday and has not seen his sweeper improve are indications that he’s not where the Brewers want him to be. That has implications for what role -- if any -- Hudson plays for the remainder of the season.