Who's the Very Best Player the Brewers Could Acquire Before MLB Trade Deadline?

It's easy to identify the superstar most likely to be traded before the MLB trade deadline next Monday. It's two-time defending AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, of the flailing Tigers. Skubal isn't a great fit for the Milwaukee Brewers, though. He's still due more than $10 million for the balance of this season, and this November, he becomes eligible for free agency. If he's traded, the acquiring team won't even be able to extend him a qualifying offer and collect draft-pick compensation when he heads for the open market. That's not a very Brewers-y target, especially since the Tigers are likely to demand high-level prospects in exchange for the short-term rental of their mega-ace.

The odds of the Crew giving up the massive haul the Padres will want for Mason Miller aren't much higher. Pairing Jacob Misiorowski and Miller on the same staff sounds like a dream, and Miller is under team control beyond this season, but his gaudy stats and saves totals will make him expensive. It's also risky to give up multiple young players to land a hurler with so much obvious injury risk attached to them—and not the kind of 'risky' that fits the decision-making framework of a team like Milwaukee.

Nationals infielder CJ Abrams is having a career year, hurtling toward what could be 40 home runs and 30 steals at age 25. He's under team control for two more seasons, too. So what's the catch? Well, just that, actually. Abrams is a poor defender, unsuited to shortstop for a team as defense-minded as the Brewers, and his best alternative position would be second, where the team already has a down-ballot MVP candidate in Brice Turang. Under no pressure to move Abrams, the Nationals will hold onto him unless they get multiple top prospects; the Brewers are unlikely to pony up that way for a player who doesn't fit their roster well.

Who, then, is the best player the Brewers might actually be willing and able to acquire in the next six days? Most teams are constrained by either their ability to spend or the depth of their farm system. There's certainly some limit on what Mark Attanasio will approve, financially, but the Brewers have some flexibility there. More importantly (since prospects are currency in July), they have the best farm system in baseball, and a young enough big-league roster to trade from that depth fearlessly if they get the right chance. There might be players who are functionally unavailable right now, except to the Brewers. Here are a few of them.

James Wood
This is the dream scenario, though it also seems to demand a bit of temerity from Matt Arnold that seemed to belong more to his former boss, David Stearns. Wood, 23, still has a whopping four years of team control left after 2026, and the Nationals seem to be ahead of schedule in their rebuild. They absolutely won't trade Wood, whom they acquired as the co-headliner of the Juan Soto deal in 2021 (alongside Abrams)—unless they get an even richer package for him than for Soto. That would mean Jesus Made and more. This deal would be akin to the Brewers trading for Christian Yelich in January 2018. It would be a major shakeup, and it would be risky, even with Cooper Pratt in place as a shortstop who can make losing Made hurt a bit less. It would also add a .272/.398/.556 hitter to their lineup. It might just make them favorites to win the World Series.

Logan Webb
The big concerns about a rotation spearheaded by Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison aren't about performance; they're about availability. With Logan Webb, availability is never in doubt. He's topped 200 innings in each of the last three seasons, a virtual miracle in the modern game. He's smack in the middle of a five-year, $90-million deal that looks very team-friendly, and even as they ponder a major roster overhaul, the Giants have said he's not available. Again, though, the Brewers have the farm system to make a player like Webb available, given the Giants' circumstances and Milwaukee's organizational depth. Again, add Webb to the rotation, and you're instant favorites for the pennant. Like Wood, he would be a boost not only immediately, but into the future.

Hunter Goodman
A recent report in The Athletic indicated that reservations about Goodman's defense have dinged his trade value enough to make a deal unlikely. That should only be music to the Brewers' ears. With one of the league's best catching instruction infrastructures, they would have a chance to mend the biggest weakness in a profile that has already netted Goodman two 30-homer seasons and two All-Star appearances. His huge raw power would augment the lineup for the rest of this season, and the team could then consider trading William Contreras this winter without feeling as uneasy about turning things over to one of their top catching prospects. Goodman is under team control through 2029.

Gunnar Henderson
In all likelihood, Arnold will blanch at the asking prices if he even checks in on Wood, Webb or Goodman. A slightly better plan might be to buy low on a player with superstar upside, experiencing a brutal season. Gunnar Henderson is only batting .221/.292/.401 this season, and although he's only 25 years old, he'll be a free agent in the fall of 2028. However, not for nothing was he a member of Team USA at the World Baseball Classic. He's demonstrated a virtually MVP-level ceiling as a two-way contributor at shortstop, and if coming to Milwaukee meant moving to third base, he'd be great there, defensively. 'Buying low,' here, would still mean giving up a lot; the Brewers would have to believe they can rapidly cure what has ailed him at the plate all year. It's an intriguing potential gambit, though.

The Guys You Still Can't Get
It's worth mentioning the names of two other players on a cellar-dwelling team, who make at least some sense as trade candidates. Unfortunately, because that team is the Cincinnati Reds, a trade to Milwaukee is still almost unimaginable—and the Brewers might be as scared to deal Made or other top prospects to Cincinnati as the Reds would be to send stars to their regional hegemon.

Elly De La Cruz is piecing together outright superstardom, one thing at a time. This year, he's walking more than ever and lifting the ball a bit more consistently. Formerly hapless from the right side, he's become a truer switch-hitter and has hammered lefty pitchers. His defense has gotten more consistent. He still has three more years of team control left. The Reds would surely prefer to extend him, but it's clear that he's already pricing himself out of town. There's almost no chance he's dealt this week, though, and surely, the Reds will refuse outright to ship him anywhere else in their division.

It's a slightly different story where Hunter Greene is concerned, but the ending is the same. The Reds have control of him through 2029, too, but it's expensive control: they signed him to a nine-figure deal in 2023. He missed almost the whole first half with arm trouble, and his numbers look shaky since his return. The stuff is still overpowering, though, so while they might be open to dealing Greene—they've moved on to Chase Burns as their de facto ace, signing him to a deal not unlike Greene's—the Reds will retain him if they don't get a huge haul. Neither the Brewers nor the Reds will want to heap their plates with the risks associated with swapping a bunch of young Milwaukee talent under cost and club control for Greene.

A relatively straightforward deadline is the smart bet. The Brewers don't have big needs, or big motivation to deplete their elite depth. They do have an unusual opportunity, though. There are a handful of guys throughout the league whom they can acquire, whereas virtually no one else can. That has to stay in the back of the mind, for Arnold and for Brewers fans, over the next six days.

View our top trade candidates list, up to nearly 70 names and updated regularly!