The Brewers' Starting Rotation, in the Thoughts and Words of Pat Murphy

His backstory and his persona invite some to try to fit Pat Murphy into a stereotype. He's 65, with three decades of coaching (much of it at the college level). He's a target for baseball players' favorite way to show affection, which is gentle ridicule. Yet, when you ask him questions about the game, he reveals a very multilevel, thoughtful approach to the game. He thinks holistically, he doesn't overcommit himself to any particular strategy.

That will show up most, perhaps, in his deployment of an exceptionally deep and uniquely versatile pitching staff, but one now led only by the low-volume ace Freddy Peralta atop the rotation, after the injury that made Brandon Woodruff a non-factor for 2024 and the trade that made Corbin Burnes an Oriole. Beyond Peralta (and beyond Devin Williams, in the bullpen), Murphy will have to do a lot of problem-solving, and no rigid structure suits that situation, in his way of thinking.

Early last week, Murphy asked a visiting writer how many pitchers they could name in his starting rotation. Told that the newcomer could name two (Peralta and Wade Miley), Murphy cracked wise.

"That's one more than I can," he said, smirking in a way he reserves for his favorite pastime: poking at Miley, even when not present. "No, obviously, [if] Wade is healthy, Wade pitches."

He did go on to list a few names, led by Colin Rea, but it's clear that there really is no certainty beyond Peralta at this point. Miley's shoulder soreness entering camp could mean that the team has to plug his place early in the season, but regardless of whether that's true or not, a whole lot of fluidity looms for the back half of the staff. 

Murphy didn't equivocate about his and the organization's hope that DL Hall will win a rotation spot. He directly said that they want that to happen. Hall faces likely innings limitations, though, and pitched in relief of Peralta on Sunday, which serves as some hint about how confident they are of that outcome. 

If we think of Peralta and Rea as starters, Miley as one whenever available, and Hall as a "hopefully", we're left with several flavors of "maybe" for the balance of the staff--which could mean filling upward of 400 innings. Here's a brief taxonomy of those guys, based on Murphy's words about them in media sessions this week.

Wade Miley, But More Extreme: Joe Ross
The Brewers signed Ross to a big-league deal this winter, and he doesn't have options. Shuttling him to the bullpen has seemed like one viable option, but when asked about the righthander after his first outing in the Cactus League midweek, Murphy was surprisingly convicted about him as a starter.

"I think that’s the best role for Joe," Murphy said of him as a starter. "I think it’s the best role for him, to be on the front end [of a game]. He’s only pitched so many innings in the last two years, so hopefully he goes out and makes 30 starts, but we’re planning for everything. I like him in that role."

Obviously, as Murphy alludes to, Ross just isn't going to make that many starts. If getting 140 innings from Miley would be a welcome surprise, getting even 120 from Ross would be somewhat shocking. He'll turn 31 in May, and neither his stats nor his sinker-slider mix have been especially compelling even when he's been on the mound the last few years. To work as a starter, he probably needs a third pitch that works better than any he's had in the past, and even then, durability is a relative term here.

The Bait-and-Switch Maneuver: Jakob Junis and Robert Gasser
When the Brewers signed Junis back in January, the consensus was that they'd done so with the idea of having him work as a starter. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported as much at the time. When asked about Junis as one of those clear candidates for the rotation in a midweek session, though, Murphy was more circumspect.

"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe he'll be in the same role he was in with the Giants."

That was a surprise, because Junis is rumored to have been offered more money for 2024 on a deal to pitch in relief for at least one other contender. He came to the Crew because he wanted to start, and foresaw that opportunity. He's excited about his changeup, after finding a good feel for it late in 2023 and still having it when he got to camp.

Junis certainly wasn't a starter, or even anything starter-adjacent, in 2023. He was, much more often, a multi-inning piece of a piggyback or bullpen game. It sounds like he could be in the same position in 2024.

Meanwhile, in a last-minute switcheroo Friday, Murphy had Gasser start instead of Bryse Wilson. He said that was to make sure Gasser saw more lefty hitters, but since only about 20 percent of a southpaw starter's batters faced end up being lefties, he was asked on Saturday whether that change represented a shift in his thinking, toward making Gasser a second lefty in the bullpen.

"No," he said. "What I’m envisioning is that a lot of these guys might be in a little bit of a hybrid role, having to come in to face a left-handed lineup. Junis starts the game, they pack it with lefties, we announce Junis, we bring in Gasser after him. He’s gonna have to navigate through some lefties. Normally, when Gasser’s pitching, he’s not going to have to navigate lefties, because they’ll stack it with righties. So that gives him an opportunity to do that. I wanted that experience for Gasser."

In other words, yes, Gasser might technically become a bullpen fixture, but he could be pitching as many actual innings as Junis, or even more. Fluidity is one thing. Circumstances have forced fluidity on the Brewers--or at least, their budget has done so. This is something better: genuine flexibility. Murphy is ready to put opponents into tough positions, even if it be in creative and occasionally tricky ways.

"They’re left with a choice," Murphy said. "Knowing that Junis may not go five, and we can cut that start short, maybe get Gasser in there, but he’s gotta see some lefties."

Great Depth, As Long As They're Depth: Aaron Ashby, Janson Junk
If you count Gasser and Junis as filling a spot together, you get to something like five spoken-for rotation pieces:

1. Freddy Peralta
2. Wade Miley + Joe Ross
3. Colin Rea
4. DL Hall (they hope)
5. Robert Gasser and Jakob Junis

Obviously, though, that's not a group that will account for anywhere near all of the team's starts or innings from the rotation this year. When Ross and Miley are both healthy, they can take two of these spots instead of one, but there will also be some times when neither are healthy, or when Miley isn't healthy and Ross is no longer in the mix due to ineffectiveness. In Murphy's way of thinking about it, that's not going to be a problem; it's just another challenge to manage.

"You have only 13 pitchers, so the guys with options become crucial—and being able to bounce back, and be in the type of shape that you want to be in," he said. "There’s all sorts of stuff at stake here."

That's the right pair of attributes--one entirely external, one intrinsic to the players' bodies--to use as a framework for discussing Ashby and Junk. The former is clearly not fully up to speed yet this spring, and had a rough outing Saturday against the Dodgers. That appearance wasn't as bad as it looked; there were a couple of infield plays that could have changed a lot for him. Still, he's not going to be ready to work as a starter to open the season, and he's one of those pitchers with options. I think he's most likely to gear up in Nashville, to be called up when a need arises. There's still plenty of upside with him, but he's not at his best at the moment.

Junk is a different story, except in that he, too, had a bad game against the Dodgers that could have been a good one with some better defensive support--including fielding his position better himself. I'll have a separate piece with insight from Junk shortly, but suffice to say, he's a legitimate candidate to get multiple starts in 2024. He might be more like Junis than like Rea or Peralta, but he's made some concrete improvements.

The Second Half Supplements: Carlos Rodriguez, Jacob Misiorowski, Evan McKendry
While Gasser isn't on the 40-man roster, he's pitched enough in Triple A (and has a clear enough path to succeeding against big-leaguers) to be a candidate for significant use right away. These three, by contrast, have more boxes to check. However, all three could easily slot into the rotation before the season is over. Murphy is excited about each, and McKendry, in particular, has looked good in his early live work and in the Cactus League.

That doesn't mean the team wants to be reliant on any of them any time this season. On the contrary, I think they're hoping to utilize each in relatively limited relief roles throughout 2024, with an eye toward installing them on a larger scale in 2025. Still, they're available, and Murphy's concept of the pitching staff as an amalgam of roles and skills makes them more viable in the short term.

So there you have it. This is more fluidity than you'd like to have, in a perfect world, but no team's pitching situation is perfect. The Brewers are leaning into the flexibility their number of good options provides, and Murphy is the right skipper to maximize the value of that flexibility.