Robert Gasser and the Brewers' 2024 Rotation Plans

The key piece in the infamous 2022 Josh Hader trade, Robert Gasser has now fired 181 innings for Brewers affiliates over the last season and a half. He's made 30 starts as a member of the Nashville Sounds, with solid numbers. Yet, he hasn't cracked the big-league roster. The Brewers don't have to add him to their 40-man roster to shield him from the Rule 5 Draft until next November, but realistically, it's time for Gasser to either prove himself ready and able to start in the big leagues or be reassigned. He has nothing left to prove against Triple-A hitters.

The indicators are strong for him. He's athletic, competitive, and blessed with a nasty slider. There's some chance that his long-term role is in the bullpen, for a few reasons:

1. He's a low-arm-slot lefty, which often leads to being pretty hittable against right-handed batters.
2. He's only six feet tall, and fairly thin, with little physical projection left. Rare are the lefty starters built like Gasser, but watch his delivery and his body and you're likely to be reminded of a favorite effective southpaw from somewhere in your baseball memory bank.
3. Even at 24 years old, he only averaged 92 miles per hour this year. As he moves into his middle and late 20s, he's likely to lose another tick, and quickly, that starts to threaten his ability to stick in the rotation. Soft-tossers have to be exceptionally fine to survive as starters at 90 miles per hour, which is where Gasser is heading.

In the short term, though, he should be able to stick in the rotation, and maybe even excel there. That low slot cuts both ways. Sure, it lets right-handed hitters get an early look at the ball, but it can still be somewhat deceptive--especially if Gasser can locate his fastball in the upper half of the strike zone from there. His track record on that score has been mixed, but when he finds that command, he racks up strikeouts and looks nigh unhittable.

Moreover, Gasser pairs the fastball with both a sweeping slider and a shorter, harder cutter, and those pitches can work especially nicely off the heater because of the arm slot he uses. If he can develop more confidence in the changeup that is (more or less) the only pitch going the other way, it could really round out his credentials for the starting rotation.

Gasser's arsenal went through an interesting transformational journey in 2023. He started the year as the same fastball-forward pitcher he had been throughout his brief time in the Padres system, but in the middle of the season, he tried switching up and becoming more of a cutter-and-sinker guy. That works for some pitchers whose four-seamers lack rising action, and Gasser tried to accentuate that style by lowering his release point even farther. However, late in the campaign, he abandoned the experiment and went back to his four-seamer as a primary fastball. Notably, against fellow lefties, that didn't mean making the four-seamer his top overall pitch, as he went very slider-heavy. 

It seems like, given his slot, there should eventually be some utility for Gasser in the sinker. He hasn't found that yet, though, as command of the offering eludes him. Because of that, and because the four-seamer flattens out and gets hittable if he doesn't tease the top of the zone with it, he walked or plunked 65 of the 592 batters he faced in 2023. Ideally, of course, he will issue many fewer free passes than that as a member of the big-league roster. To achieve that, particularly in the rotation, he needs to refine his command of either the four-seamer or the sinker.

Still, Gasser will live or die with the main three pitches in his arsenal: the four-seamer, the cutter, and the slider. He even reduced his usage of the changeup late in 2023 against righties.

There's something beautiful and exhilarating about watching a lefty starter fool and then overpower right-handed batters without even leaning on a changeup. Gasser sequenced well at Nashville last year, setting a righty up with the backfoot slider and then punching them out with the high fastball almost as often as he did things in the opposite order. He doesn't always get the cutter in on them as well as he needs to, but when he does, the pitch is great at inducing weak contact.

Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, Wade Miley, Adrian Houser, and Colin Rea are penciled in ahead of Gasser for the rotation. The team could always go to a six-man rotation, and even if they don't, they might trade Burnes and open a spot, anyway. That doesn't mean that Gasser is guaranteed starts, but he has shown himself ready for a real audition. If he can tighten his command on a couple of offerings, he could take a huge leap, but even without one, he's a credible back-end starter. Having him purely as depth, for the moment, is a luxury, and the Brewers are in great shape even if he ends up breaking camp as their fifth starter.

What's your read on Gasser? Is he an acceptable fourth or fifth starter for a team aspiring to defend an NL Central title? Leave a comment and spark conversation.