The Friday Night Starter: How Brewers Might Pace Jacob Misiorowski with Eye on October

When Jacob Misiorowski takes the mound Friday night to face the Cubs at Uecker Field in Milwaukee, he'll do so on six days' rest. In fact, it will be the second time in a row that he pitches with an extra day—or what those of us born before 2000 would call an extra extra day, because the fifth day of rest between starts has only become as normal as the first four within the last few years. Misiorowski will be making his 31st regular-season appearance and 30th start since debuting last June, but he's only pitched on the traditional four days' rest four times.

The Brewers know what they have in The Miz. They also know what dangers he faces. Though few pitchers in the game are better at generating power with their lower half, Misiorowski's velocity and extension—no pitcher in baseball history has had as lethal a combination of the two—mean that his body is undergoing extraordinary stresses when he pitches. So far, he hasn't broken. The team knows they can't take for granted that their luck or his ligaments will hold, though.

Thus, they'll continue to treat him cautiously. His efficiency has allowed him to work deep into games, including completing one, but the team hasn't permitted him to throw more than 101 pitches in any start this year. They're also pouncing on every opportunity to stretch out the days between starts for him, as they try to avoid letting his workload skyrocket. In 2024, he pitched 97 1/3 competitive innings, divided between the top two levels of the minors. Last year, counting his playoff outings, he pitched 141 1/3 frames. This season, he's already at 93, and the team fully intends to play not just 162 games, but 175 or so. If he stays on this pace, he could throw 200 innings in 2026, including the postseason.

Whatever you might have heard in the past, that's fine. The so-called Verducci Effect is bunk; the columnist for whom it's named did shoddy research and glibly published a piece that had needless staying power because of his ubiquity in the national baseball media at the time. It's fine and normal for Misiorowski to add 50-plus innings to his workload over a full season, even though he did something similar from 2024 to last year. However, while increasing workload doesn't act as a multiplier, per se, the more one pitches, the greater the risk of injury. The harder one throws, the greater the risk of injury. Misiorowski has been impressively available and healthy over the last 15 months, but no one is blind to the risk he faces. Thus, the team will take every viable step to mitigate that risk.

Right now, what that looks like is akin to making Misiorowski a collegiate ace. Traditionally, in NCAA baseball, a team sends their top starter to the mound just once a week, and they line them up for Friday nights. It's a handy thing for scouts who want to see pro prospects. It also makes for predictably good viewing for local fans. Most of all, though, putting players on that schedule has helped lure coaches away from an even more ingrained tradition that prevailed before this one: abusing elite arms and burning through them in their early 20s.

Misiorowski started on a Friday night two weeks ago against the Phillies. Last week, he got the nod again in the northwest suburbs of Atlanta. For the third week in a row, he'll be the Brewers' Friday Night Starter, this time against the Cubs. It raises the hype and the mania of what was already sure to be an electric ballpark, as the Crew welcome a streaking but ragged Chicago team to town and look to knock them out of the division race for good. He won't stay on the Friday Nights Only schedule next week, but he could bop back onto it soon thereafter.

Friday marks the first of 18 games in 17 days, leading into the All-Star break. Having Misiorowski start the opener of such a rough spot in the schedule is a great way to set the tone, but he won't be able to wait until next Friday for his next appearance. That will probably come, instead, in the final contest of this six-game homestand, against the Reds next Thursday. After that, he might start on four days' rest for once, during the Crew's doubleheader in St. Louis—but it's more likely that his final start before the All-Star break will come July 8, to close out that series against the Brewers' toughest challengers for this year's NL Central crown.

Presumably, Misiorowski will be asked to start the All-Star Game, but that will just be a brief engagement. Assuming he stays fully healthy between now and then, we could see him land back on the Friday Night Starter schedule beginning July 17, when the Brewers begin their official second half against Miami. They have off days on July 23 and July 30, so if the team elects to go with some form of a six-man rotation (a term Pat Murphy assiduously avoids, but which basically applies to the way they're running the staff right now), Misiorowski could start on July 17, July 24 and July 31, pitching twice at home in three straight weeks of Friday nights. 

Another run of 17 days between open dates for Milwaukee will force Misiorowski off a once-a-week schedule for most of August. However, it's easy to see how he might get back onto that plan in September. I can get him to the end of the season with 30 total starts, without ever having him truly miss a turn in the rotation. If the Brewers can do that, they almost certainly will.

The most remarkable thing about this, though, is not Misiorowski himself. For once, he's not the story, although the story is about him. Rather, this one is about what the Brewers have afforded themselves. In addition to the best pitcher in baseball, they have a legitimate Cy Young Award contender in any other year, in Kyle Harrison; the dominant-when-healthy veteran Brandon Woodruff; and the best depth corps of any team in the league, featuring Brandon Sproat, Shane Drohan, Robert Gasser, Chad Patrick, and the currently injured Coleman Crow and Logan Henderson. They also boast the best farm system in baseball, from which could come more direct help, or from which they could deal to add one more starter before the trade deadline. 

Almost no other team in the league could afford to slowplay an ace like this. Milwaukee has so many versatile and valuable arms that they can survive five games in six days without Misiorowski getting involved. As they always seem to do, they've also created a buffer for themselves. A slight slip in the standings need not put a bead of sweat on their brows; they have control of the division. The combination of excellent depth and a lack of real urgency to win every last regular-season game in the second half should make taking it easy with Misiorowski relatively easy.

The marketing department has to love this. What's easier than making money on a superstar who appears on a predictable schedule? The house is full as often as not during the summers in Milwaukee, but the team can make a real killing by promoting Misiorowski starts that come like clockwork, right alongside the weekend vibes. The front office and the coaching staff wouldn't do it for that reason, though. Misiorowski is being treated like a college arm right now because it's the best way to maximize the chances that he still has this much crackling heat in his arm when the NLCS begins in mid-October.