The Brewers Should Gamble On Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander In 2025

Freddy Peralta’s 2024 didn’t live up to the hype of his second half in 2023. Brandon Woodruff is returning from a career-defining shoulder surgery, and talented upside arms like DL Hall and Aaron Ashby are struggling to find their way. The top of the Brewers rotation lacks the combination of reliability and quality you look for in a team contending for the playoffs. Nestor Cortes has provided both at times in his career, most notably in 2022; however, unless the Brewers can find some way to get more ground balls or swing-and-miss from his arsenal, he has a limit to how high he can go.

In short, there are enough questions over health and performance that adding one more player, despite question marks over health, could be well suited if they intend to chase hard in 2025. They have enough depth to cover should it go horribly wrong, but the options are two former Cy Young-winning, bullish competitors, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Neither is likely to command the expensive payrolls of their heyday and should be available on one-year deals, but what they can add could be instrumental to the 2025 Brewers. On the other hand, both players are in the twilight years of their careers and will want to go to a contending team with a strong chance of making the playoffs.

How Do The Brewers Make Room?
The Milwaukee Brewers payroll limitations are at the upper end of their limit, so acquiring either Scherzer or Verlander would require offloading some salary. Per Sportrac, Scherzer is projected for a one-year deal at $15.2 million, while Verlander is expected to land in the $10-$15 million range. Creating some room and mitigating a little of the heartache would require making a space in the rotation as it stands currently, where the Brewers have Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, Nestor Cortes, Aaron Civale, Tobias Myers, DL Hall, and Aaron Ashby with proven MLB experience as starters while Chad Patrick, Connor Thomas and even Jacob Misiorowski push to get some games as swing men or more. 

Aaron Civale has attracted interest across the league because his final year of arbitration contract is approaching $8 million. He has shown signs of returning to his Cleveland Guardians form rather than the Tampa Bay Rays version. Offloading that contract and likely acquiring some prospect capital in the process would allow the Brewers to stay within the realms of their internal salary budgets while adding an arm and a personality that can elevate a team.

The Brewers may attempt to trim further salaries around the edges to limit the damage to a net of around $5 million. Still, all MLB teams have some wiggle room around their salary budgets. With the Brewers finalizing their investment into their minor league structure this season, they may have a little more cash to throw at their MLB payroll, or perhaps they will restrict themselves at the deadline by having fewer funds available for acquisitions at that point. Either way, this isn't an astronomical ask, and they should be able to accommodate the extra salary within their current means.

One of the biggest hangups about bringing in an aging pitcher is the rapid decline seen in the “stuff” in their arsenal. Thanks to Thomas Nestioc, or “TJstats,” we can access some tried and tested grades on the pitching arsenals of both Scherzer and Verlander. Let’s take a look at why either might fit the Brewers model.

Why Max Scherzer?

As you can see, in 2024, Max Scherzer retained an above-average fastball and slider (the cutter seems to be a misidentified hard slider). These two pitches, both of which he commands impeccably, have been the bread and butter of his long and illustrious career, and despite returning from herniated disc surgery in his back, he still showed similar stuff levels to his 2023 numbers where over a full season produced an expected ERA of 3.28 (85th percentile). When he got hit, he did get hit hard in 2024, but Scherzer's slider and curveball had strong swing-and-miss rates, while the rising fastball was more than effective.

Even in a slightly down year for Scherzer, he provided a sub-four ERA with above-average strikeout rates and a fantastic walk rate. With Milwaukee's outfield defense, he no doubt has a chance to outperform those numbers even further with the Brewers in 2025. He presents a higher likelihood of avoiding injuries. As a result, he has a higher floor than Verlander, without quite the same high level of performance in recent years. Still, his avoidance of walks and competitive nature will work brilliantly within the Brewers' current clubhouse. With personalities like Scherzer and Woodruff in the Brewers clubhouse, the young talent coming through will learn much about succeeding in the major leagues. 

Why Justin Verlander?
Verlander struggled with many injuries in 2024, first with a shoulder impingement, then later with a neck problem that he recently confessed to returning too quickly from. His performance wasn't that of 2023 Verlander by any stretch, but the underlying stuff was still there:

In fact, his fastball graded out better in 2024, but the issue appeared to come from leaning more heavily on his curveball and changeup in-season, as well as a lack of command and some poor luck (partially his fault from a total lack of ground balls). His hard hit rate of just 32.6% was exceptional (92nd percentile), but when he did get squared up, it got hit hard and aerially, resulting in the high ERA.

I could easily argue that Verlander, back to full health this off-season, provides a higher upside than Scherzer and has demonstrated as such as recently as 2023 with a 3.22 ERA in 162 innings. He doesn't have the same strikeout quality as the Verlander of old, but his metrics looked better in 2024 than his startling 2023 numbers; plus, he's likely to come in closer to the $12-$13 million mark for a one-year deal.

Either of these two veterans would provide a presence, stability, and nous on which the Brewers rotation could benefit from gambling. Verlander especially has shown that, with health, he can be as dominant as ever on the mound, and both would likely receive boosts from the outfield defense compared to that of the Rangers and Astros. Both have expressed a desire to come back and pitch in 2025 and have the raw stuff to succeed. If the goal is to win a World Series, perhaps it's a gamble the Brewers ought to take.

What do you think, Fanatics? Can you see the Brewers looking to trade Civale and open a spot for one of Scherzer or Verlander? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

A special thanks to TJstats for allowing me to use his models to write this article. His variety of models is well worth a Patreon subscription and, at the very least, a social media following for any of you who enjoyed the graphics above!