Brewers Video
The Brewers have proved themselves to be better at scouting and development than any other team in baseball—to be the league's hardest pipeline to disrupt. With barely a month left before the end of the season, though, the team now faces one of its sternest tests in recent memory. They placed Trevor Megill on the injured list Wednesday, and signed drifting spare arm Erick Fedde to help soak up innings as they race toward the finish line of the regular campaign.
I documented the erosion of Megill's dominance (and the connection between those struggles and his workload) earlier this week, so this doesn't come as a monumental surprise. It does, however, constitute a massive blow to a team that needed Megill and his firepower to help lock down the back ends of games.
It's possible Megill will be down for the balance of the regular season. In fact, that's the safe bet. Across dozens of cases since the start of 2016, pitchers who suffered flexor strains in their throwing arms any time before September 1 have had an average time to return of 72 days, and a median time of 56 days. The Brewers are cautiously optimistic that Megill's is a mild strain, and the pressure and value of the postseason will probably call him back to action in under 35 days, but it would be an upset to see him make it back before the end of September.
While he's gone, presumably, Abner Uribe will slot in as Milwaukee's new closer. We're likely to see Shelby Miller and Nick Mears step one rung up the ladder each, and perhaps Craig Yoho will get one more chance to make good on all the hype around him going back to the spring. Of course, the Brewers also have more starters than they'll need, come October. We could see Chad Patrick and/or Jacob Misiorowski slide into relief roles for the playoffs, if they're needed in those positions. For now, the main thing is to hope Megill can get right by then—but there are still some important games left to play to finish off the team's third straight division title, too.
Fedde is an extra arm, and little else. He does, loosely, fit the characteristics we've seen the Brewers target and mold well in recent years, but there's almost no time left for them to make any meaningful changes to what he does or how he does it. The scarce resource of coaches' time and attention only grows more scarce come late August and early September, too. Consider the chances that he emerges as anything more than a sponge for the innings the team has been trying to soak up with whoever they can scrounge up during this overloaded stretch of the schedule to be remote. Then again, never fully count out the Brewers and their capacity to work fast magic.
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