Jack Stern

The Brewers confirmed their signing of the former All-Star on Wednesday, completing a gradual but dramatic rotation makeover since last year. Image courtesy of © Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Last year, the Brewers opened the regular season with a starting rotation of Freddy Peralta, DL Hall, Colin Rea, Jakob Junis, and Joe Ross. Durability concerns surrounded that group; Junis had not started full-time since 2019, Ross missed the previous two seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery, and Hall's brief big-league experience was almost exclusively in relief. The worst-case scenario quickly unfolded. Hall, Junis, and Ross struggled to work deep into games and were injured by the end of May, combining to start just 18 games. That threw Pat Murphy's pitching staff into an immediate all-hands-on-deck scramble, which ultimately included 17 different starting pitchers and necessitated midseason trades for Aaron Civale and Frankie Montas. The Brewers made it work, which is a credit to their outstanding pitching development system. It's not an ideal way to operate, though, so they moved to prevent a repeat shortage of legitimate starters. Fast-forward a year, and the club has rebuilt its rotation around experience and durability. The bow on top is José Quintana, who will join Peralta, Nestor Cortes, Tobias Myers, and Civale after signing a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2026. Quintana's not the most exciting pitcher, nor does he have the rosiest 2025 projections. There's a reason he lingered on the market this long before settling for Milwaukee's $4-million guarantee. While he posted a 3.75 ERA in 31 starts last year, most ERA estimators (4.56 FIP, 4.52 xERA, 4.57 SIERA, 116 DRA-) painted him as a below-average starter. That's less concerning to the Brewers, who have overperformed their FIP by the widest margin in baseball since 2023 thanks to excellent defense. Jake McKibbin explored what makes Quintana successful and why that recipe might work again under Milwaukee's run-prevention system. The true value in this deal, though, is his consistent availability. He's started at least 30 games in nine of his 13 seasons. Even if Quintana regresses to a middle ground between last year's results and peripherals, he'll still round out the rotation with greater stability than the previous options promised. The starting staff could have survived without another addition, but only with a carousel of arms requiring extra maintenance from Murphy, Matt Arnold, and Chris Hook. Neither Aaron Ashby nor Tyler Alexander have started more than 19 big-league games in a season, and the former is awaiting a second opinion for an oblique injury. DL Hall was placed on the 60-day IL to make room for Quintana and faces a lengthy absence due to a lat strain. Connor Thomas and Chad Patrick have no MLB experience. Brandon Woodruff's live bullpens have gone as well as one could hope, but he remains on a delayed build-up schedule and has not enjoyed a fully healthy season since 2021. With Quintana in tow, Murphy will open the year with four starters who started at least 30 games last year. Instead of being forced to get creative and stretch his relievers out of the gates, he can set a more traditional rotation and better pace his bullpen. "I'm really happy he's on our side now," Murphy said after Wednesday's Cactus League game against the White Sox. "I believe in the person. I believe in his preparation—that he can come out fast, and I think he'll really help us out. "Great job by Matt Arnold, getting that done. He did it personally. I mean he worked at this for a while, personally, and I think it's great." You can see the labor that went into the deal in the details of it. Murphy badly wanted the reinforcement of an extra arm, and Arnold concurred, so if they had simply had $4.5 million to hand to Quintana for 2025, they would have done so a few weeks ago. Instead, working in the very fine margin between his existing payroll and the limits of his budget, Arnold hammered out a deal with Quintana and his representatives that will pay the pitcher just $2 million in 2025; a $250,000 roster bonus for making the team (almost a certainty, but not technically a guarantee); bonuses at five different tiers for games started and four for innings pitched; and a $2-million buyout on a $15-million mutual option for 2026. That degree of creativity demonstrates both the rigidity of the constraints within which Arnold needed to work—even if he meets every incentive in the deal, Quintana will only make $3.5 million before that buyout in November—and the level of urgency the front office and the coaching staff felt. The addition also clarifies how the bullpen will look on Opening Day. Alexander and Thomas cannot be optioned to the minor leagues; Alexander will almost certainly make the team as a long reliever. That's a blow to Elvis Peguero, Elvin Rodriguez, Abner Uribe, Grant Anderson, and Grant Wolfram, most of whom will now be optioned to Triple-A, regardless of their spring training performances. The chances of Thomas being returned to the St. Louis Cardinals (or claimed elsewhere on waivers) just rose significantly. It's in the best interests of the team, though. All of these pitchers will get big-league innings throughout a 162-game regular season. Quintana's presence takes weight off their shoulders and ensures the Brewers have the pitching depth they'll need. View full article

After reports from camp and a sampling of Statcast tracking, it’s becoming clearer what the Brewers see in one of their few offseason signings. Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images When the Brewers inked Elvin Rodriguez to a split deal in January, it was unclear what role he would play on the 2025 pitching staff. He had an arsenal headlined by a couple of standout pitches that played best in relief, where he found success in Japan in 2024. Possibilities included stretching him out or using him as a strict reliever and simplifying his arsenal to his best pitches. With spring training in full swing, we now have a partial answer. After his first preseason outing, Pat Murphy indicated to beat reporters that the Brewers view Rodriguez as a multi-inning reliever. Rodriguez worked into a second inning in his follow-up outing on Monday night. That was also his first appearance of the year in a Statcast-equipped stadium, providing the first glimpse of his repertoire after some time with Milwaukee’s pitching development brass. There’s been no downsizing. Rodriguez’s entire arsenal remains intact and appears more refined than in his last Stateside stint. Most notably, his breaking stuff is bigger. His curveball has a few more inches of depth, and his slider is a full-blown sweeper. He also showed an extra tick of velocity, averaging nearly 96 mph with his fastball and touching 97 multiple times. Rodriguez focused on his fastball in his second spring appearance, but his secondaries should receive more time in subsequent outings. His cutter is arguably his least remarkable pitch, but it may be the one to watch most moving forward, especially after he has landed on an extremely horizontal slider. With a wide movement gap between his riding fastball and large breakers, Rodriguez needs a shorter offering to fill the chasm and tie his arsenal together. Working multiple innings is important to Rodriguez's roster utility, and eventually, he might even start games at Triple A. Murphy didn't want to commit to that, but didn't rule it out, either. "We’re gonna ramp him up a little bit, but how far, we'll see," he told reporters Saturday. The Brewers’ abundance of bullpen depth will force them to use the minor-league options of capable relievers, so Rodriguez may not make the Opening Day roster regardless of how well he performs his camp. In any case, he’ll surface sooner than later, and it’s becoming clearer why the club believes he can make an impact. View full article

The Brewers' lumbering former relief ace looked more like his best self in his Cactus League debut—and he has a new pitch. Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Yes, Bryan Hudson struck out two of the four batters he faced in his first preseason outing, but that's unimportant. Results are usually meaningless in spring training games, and the Brewers already know how effective Hudson can be, after he posted a 1.73 ERA in 62 1/3 innings last year. Most of that production came in the first half, though, before Hudson's physical freshness waned. That's why he entered camp with something to prove, and why the form he showed on Tuesday was a notable first step toward reclaiming his status as a key part of the team's bullpen. The Brewers raised eyebrows when they optioned their towering southpaw to Triple-A last September. We've covered in detail why they did it and why he never returned to the active roster. The Cliffs Notes version is that Hudson's velocity tapered throughout the season, altering how his fastball and sweeper played and forcing him to lean increasingly on his mediocre cutter. He no longer projected as the excellent reliever he was for most of the year. The club initially painted the demotion as temporary until Hudson looked rejuvenated, but the lost velocity never returned. Fast-forward several months, and Hudson is much closer to his best self. His first fastball of the year clocked in at 93.9 mph—the firmest heater he's thrown in a game since last June—and his sweeper touched 84.2 mph. Month 4FB Avg. Velo 4FB Max Velo SW Avg. Velo SW Max Velo April 2024 91.8 94.5 80.7 83.6 June 2024 91.5 94.0 83.1 86.9 September 2024 89.3 91.2 78.4 79.8 February 2025 92.4 93.9 81.2 84.2 He also debuted a new toy. Hudson had never thrown a changeup in a big-league game, but he mixed one in against the right-handed-hitting Juan Brito. MDRPTjFfWGw0TUFRPT1fQUZSWFZsMENWRk1BRGxzQ0FnQUFWQTVWQUZoUlZBQUFCMXhXVlFBRlZGQmRCMVpV.mp4 The off-centered camera angle and Hudson missing away make it harder to see the shape, but this pitch had -2 inches of induced vertical break and 16 inches of arm-side movement. He's never thrown a pitch with more than 13 inches of run in a regular-season game. Most of Hudson's stuff cuts, sweeps, or stays straight. While he doesn't truly need a changeup, it adds the fade away from righties that was once the missing link in his arsenal. Because he has an option remaining, Hudson is not a lock to crack the Opening dDay bullpen. That said, if he sustains his velocity and carries a new pitch into the regular season, he'll reclaim a significant post in the bullpen sooner, rather than later. View full article

While the unheralded infielder's multi-homer Cactus League opener didn't hurt matters, he was already a solid (if overlooked) bet to secure a place when the team heads north next month. Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images You would not be alone if you forgot Vinny Capra was in the organization until his headline-capturing spring training debut over the weekend. The 28-year-old has just five career big-league hits, in 37 plate appearances. He received only a three-game cup of coffee with the Brewers last year, and his overall numbers at Triple-A Nashville were unremarkable. As the front office maneuvered changes and worked within the constraints of the 40-man roster to fill needs and weather minor-league injuries, they found ways to hang onto Capra throughout last season and the winter. That implies that they view him as a useful depth piece with traits they value. Capra has never been a power threat, reaching double-digit home runs even in the minors for the only time in his career in 2021. Expecting above-average offense in the big leagues is optimistic. However, he plays solid defense at multiple positions and makes smart swing decisions, which are among the chief attributes the Brewers emphasize at all levels of the organization. Last year in Nashville, Capra chased only 23% of pitches outside the strike zone and walked at a 10.6% clip. He also shrewdly selects which pitches to swing at within the zone. Like most hitters, Capra is at his best when he pulls the ball, so he’s aggressive on inside fastballs and passive on outside ones. After that brief midseason stint with the Brewers, Capra returned to Nashville and finished strong. From July through September, he slashed .282/.365/.431, making more contact and hitting the ball harder. Months OPS wRC+ BB% K% Whiff% Hard Hit% Barrel/BBE% March-June .685 82 11.6% 20.9% 22.1% 33.7% 3.6% July-September .797 111 9.1% 15.2% 17.1% 39.6% 8.3% Capra revealed to reporters that he spent the winter training for bat speed, which could further nudge his quality of contact forward. He’ll never crush the ball, though, and he doesn’t have to. During the offseason, Capra’s lack of minor-league options was a reason to assume his 40-man spot was in jeopardy. Fast-forward to spring training, where it now gives him a leg up on his peers. Oliver Dunn, Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, and Isaac Collins can all be sent to the minors throughout the year. Rostering Capra over any of them on the bench best maintains depth. If he looks the part of a competent utility man who can reach base at a decent clip, he’ll likely grab one of the final roster spots when the club breaks camp. View full article

The Brewers already needed more depth at first base, and an early spring training injury thinned the crop in the outfield. Enter a former trade deadline pickup who adds reliability at both spots. Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images An old friend is joining Brewers camp. Jon Heyman reported Saturday evening that the club agreed to a minor-league deal with Mark Canha that includes an invite to big-league spring training. Milwaukee first acquired Canha via trade from the New York Mets in 2023, when they needed competent hitters to aid a then-feeble lineup. While the team's shape looks quite different now, he returns with a similar task of supporting the position player core with his unassuming but capable floor as a hitter. The 36-year-old offers little game power at this stage of his career, hitting just seven home runs last season, but he remains a solid on-base hitter who consistently provides quality plate appearances. For now, he provides insurance in the outfield and at first base. A fractured shin will sideline Blake Perkins until at least May, pushing Garrett Mitchell and Sal Frelick into center field more frequently. That left the Brewers needing another corner outfielder. They signed Manuel Margot to a minor-league deal last week, but Canha has a superior offensive track record. While third base has rightfully received attention as the roster’s weak spot, things are quietly precarious across the diamond. Neither Rhys Hoskins nor Tyler Black are competent defenders at first base, prompting the Brewers to re-up with Jake Bauers on a minor-league pact as a better option in the field. Barring substantial improvement from Black, it seemed the club would run it back with last year’s Hoskins and Bauers tandem, which combined for replacement-level production. Hoskins is still the primary option at first, and whether the Brewers improve at the position hinges on him bouncing back. Canha could supersede Bauers on the depth chart, though, even if it would give Pat Murphy two right-handed-hitting first basemen. While Bauers and Canha are both patient hitters, they have opposing profiles in many respects. The former boasts impressive raw power that has gone unrealized due to alarming levels of swing-and-miss, while the latter makes softer but far more frequent contact. Canha won’t wow anyone on either side of the ball, but he’s a safe choice to have available for multiple positions should the Brewers need one. He slashed .242/.344/.346 (102 wRC+) last year, and ZiPS projects him for a nearly identical .243/.345/.355 (103 wRC+) line in 2025. He shouldn’t be a leading choice at any position, but he could crack the Opening Day roster as a plug-and-play veteran who can start a couple of times per week. View full article

Last year was a rough sophomore campaign for the Brewers utility man, but he made an adjustment that could serve him well in the long run—if he can better harness it, moving forward. Image courtesy of © Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Andruw Monasterio was a pleasant surprise for the Brewers two years ago. The versatile infielder carved out a nearly three-month run as the regular third baseman, carrying a .780 OPS and 116 wRC+ into mid-August. While some of his favorable batted-ball luck faded down the stretch and saw him cede playing time at the hot corner to Josh Donaldson, Monasterio’s final line of .259/.330/.348 (88 wRC+) and solid chase and contact rates left him looking like a viable utility player moving forward. His follow-up campaign was not nearly as productive. Monasterio again spent most of the season on the roster but received just 142 plate appearances, limping to a .575 OPS and 68 wRC+. It’s often best to focus on processes, rather than results. That's even more true in such a small sample. While the results weren’t there last year, Monasterio made an adjustment that could help him in the long run: he started swinging harder, without compromising his compact swing length. Monasterio’s average bat speed increased from 67.1 mph in his debut season to 69.1 mph in 2024. That still leaves him within the bottom quartile of hitters, but would have ranked as one of the highest year-to-year increases had he accrued enough playing time to qualify. Harder swings are usually longer, but Monasterio’s 6.7-foot swing length remained unchanged. Because he was generating more velocity with his bat, Monasterio made significantly more hard contact. His hard-hit and Barrel rates jumped from poor to just above the league averages. Despite this, he was actually less productive when he put the ball in play. Year Hard Hit% Barrel% wOBAcon xwOBAcon 2023 33.5% 5.5% .337 .346 2024 41.2% 9.4% .305 .349 Shoddy luck is partially to blame. Monasterio’s expected production on contact remained roughly the same from his rookie season. Still, that’s not the improvement one would expect to follow from hitting the ball harder. Velocity off the bat isn’t the only thing that matters, though. The launch angle and direction of the ball can be even more important, particularly for a hitter like Monasterio. Two years ago, he was a line-drive machine who was among baseball’s best at catching the ball out in front of the plate with the sweet spot of the bat. That wasn’t the case after he adopted a faster swing. Year SweetSpot% SquaredUp% LD% Contact% 2023 41.3% 32.5% 29.8% 78.3% 2024 36.5% 23.0% 23.5% 76.0% Statcast considers batted balls with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees to have hit the sweet spot, and it defines squared-up balls as those with at least 80% of the exit velocity made possible by the speed of the pitch and the swing. Noticeable dropoffs in both metrics mean Monasterio was not catching nearly as many pitches at the right time in his swing path. This was especially true against hard pitches. Despite making more hard contact per batted ball, Monasterio’s batting average against fastballs fell from .299 to .214, and his whiff rate on in-zone heaters jumped from 12.5% to 17.9%. It’s hard to dig deeper due to the small sample size and lack of side-angle video, but the evidence implies that while Monasterio’s swing remained short, his timing was off, and his path to the ball was less consistent. If he can better harness his newfound bat speed, he could once again become a useful bench piece for a club still sorting through some of its infield options. View full article

Replacing the power of Willy Adames is non-negotiable for the Brewers' success this year. After they failed to do so externally, all eyes are on several incumbent hitters to take steps forward. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images One of the main questions regarding the Brewers' offseason was how they would replace the power output of the departing Willy Adames. With spring training now in full swing, the answer is in: they didn't—at least, not externally. Adames launched a career-best 32 home runs last year, in 688 plate appearances. Scaling their aggregate playing time to that same sample size, ZiPS projects the in-house replacements Oliver Dunn, Caleb Durbin, and Andruw Monasterio to combine for just 12 long balls. Subbing that trio for Adames on the 2024 Brewers would have dropped them from ranking 16th in home runs and 18th in ISO to 25th and 23rd, respectively. Last year's lineup had a scrappy identity but hit for just enough power to be a solid offense, finishing 10th in baseball with a 104 wRC+. Any step back in that department is unacceptable for a contending team; it's the chief concern with the roster about to take shape. While the Brewers could still swing a trade or scoop up one of the remaining free-agent infielders, at this point, nobody who would meaningfully improve this team's power output is walking through the door. That leaves Milwaukee reliant on internal improvement. The good news is that the young Brewers lineup features ample raw power. The bad news is that it hasn't been realized in games by most of these players, and the organization has a spotty track record of developing hitters over the last decade. That makes the 2025 lineup challenging to project. The Brewers could feasibly hit for above-average power, but they could just as easily be among the most punchless offenses in baseball. With the exceptions of Brice Turang and Sal Frelick, nearly every position features some raw pop. Even with those two combining for 1,142 plate appearances last year, the Brewers still ranked 16th in average bat speed and 10th in fast swing rate, and they're returning up to seven hitters with an average bat speed of at least 73 mph. There are two standouts who should be hitting for significantly more power than they have so far. William Contreras and Garrett Mitchell are bat speed darlings, with Contreras making some of the hardest contact in the sport, including baseball's fourth-highest maximum exit velocity in 2024. Because both ran ground ball rates well north of 50% last year, however, Contreras only hit 23 home runs, and Mitchell hit just eight in another injury-truncated campaign. Mitchell's profile has additional flaws, including his well-documented inability to touch velocity at the top of the zone. On elevated hard pitches, he has a career 50.9% whiff rate and just one non-bunt hit. Whether he realizes his power in games hinges on mitigating these weaknesses. Mitchell spent the offseason training at Driveline Baseball, where he focused on working behind the ball to improve his timing and open a wider contact window for pulling balls in the air. Dunn also falls into this category, albeit more loosely. His 75.2-mph average bat speed barely trailed Mitchell's as the fastest on the team, and he hit 21 homers in Double A in 2023. An untenable 38.5% strikeout rate held him back last year and is the leading reason for his uninspiring 2025 projection. If Dunn can make more contact, his exciting skill set could shine through in his second taste of the big leagues. A pair of veterans are eyeing resurgent seasons. Christian Yelich was on pace to exceed 20 homers last season before back surgery ended his season shortly after the All-Star break. The longtime left fielder has assured reporters early in camp that he expects to be ready for Opening Day. Rhys Hoskins still hit 26 home runs in a down year, but he's presumably looking to recapture the lower-body mobility that helped him slug 30 long balls in his last healthy season, 2022. Finally, two less experienced players could continue to grow into more power. Jackson Chourio and Joey Ortiz emerged as valuable regulars in their rookie campaigns, and how close they get to their ceilings as sophomores will be key determiners in how far this year's team goes. Chourio left the yard 21 times last year, but he's hardly a finished product as he enters his age-21 season. He launched the Brewers' longest home run of the year (a 449-foot blast off the American Family Field video board in August), and his quick hands fuel above-average bat speed and impressive plate coverage. Ortiz hit seven homers through June and reached a 77th-percentile maximum exit velocity, but lingering complications from a midseason neck injury and an overly passive approach limited him to a .345 slugging percentage over the season's final three months. While it's more realistic to hope only a couple of them get there, there are reasons to believe each of Contreras, Chourio, and Hoskins could reach 30 home runs, with others not far behind. That affords the Brewers multiple permutations by which they can hit for sufficient power. Whether enough of that internal development actually occurs is another story. Backfilling Adames's output will be a group effort, and enough must go right to make it happen. Time will tell if the Brewers made a worthwhile gamble by not investing in a more direct and accomplished replacement. View full article

Prospects are not the only non-roster players worth watching in spring training. February also affords a glimpse of less-heralded players who could appear in the big leagues later in the year. A few such guys will see action for the Brewers early in camp. Image courtesy of © Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images For most established players with assured roster spots, the objective of spring training is to follow a gradual buildup; dial in mechanics and (for hitters) pitch recognition; and leave camp feeling healthy for Opening Day. It’s a bit different for non-roster invitees and those fighting for a job, as preseason play is a platform for proving their worth to their team—and others who may be watching. Many of these players are well-known prospects who are getting a rare sampling of big-league competition. This site has covered them extensively and will continue to do so (thanks for your service, Spencer Michaelis), but we’re focusing today on other non-roster players who might otherwise be overlooked. Barring a slew of injuries, these guys will not break camp with the team, but they could surface in the big leagues later in 2025 or beyond. Here are a few such non-prospect players to follow in the early weeks of Brewers camp. RHP Easton McGee A pitcher who has appeared in just two big-league games, owns a career 5.11 ERA in Triple-A, and missed chunks of the last two seasons while recovering from Tommy John surgery is as under-the-radar as it gets. McGee enters the second season of a two-year minor-league deal he signed midway through his rehab. After going under the knife in May 2023, the 27-year-old returned to the mound last summer. McGee pitched to an ugly 7.03 ERA in 24 ⅓ Triple-A innings after his activation, but his more palatable 3.73 FIP and 105 DRA- indicate he threw better than his box score results imply. Most importantly, his strengths were intact. Like many Brewers rotation options, McGee is not a “stuff” guy. Instead, he leans on pinpoint control, deception, and keeping hitters off-balance with a full arsenal. He features the four-seam, two-seam, and cutter triad the club loves, two distinct breaking balls, and a changeup. His unorthodox near-sidearm release slot from his 6-foot-6 height creates deception, particularly on that four-seamer. It has induced tons of whiffs at the top of the zone throughout McGee's career, despite its underwhelming low-90s velocity. mcgee_whiff.mp4 McGee walked just 2.8% of hitters in Triple-A last year. His sinker (25% hard-hit rate) and curveball (12.5%) missed barrels, and his four-seamer missed bats (42.5% whiff rate). He also tightened up his cutter shape. After it frequently backed up in 2023, McGee achieved more consistent glove-side movement upon his return. The Brewers have nudged kitchen-sink hurlers like Bryse Wilson and Colin Rea toward higher cutter usage and may have a similar blueprint in mind for McGee. Minor-league pitch tagging is often imprecise, but he seemingly worked the revamped cutter more heavily last year. It’s the pitch to watch in his spring training outings. LHP Bruce Zimmermann Zimmermann has more big-league experience, but occupies the same territory as McGee on the depth chart. In 158 ⅓ innings, the southpaw has worked to a 5.57 ERA, 5.68 FIP, and 128 DRA-. He did not pitch in the majors last year, posting a 4.34 ERA, 4.10 FIP, and 92 DRA- in 76 ⅔ innings for the Baltimore Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate in Norfolk. Whether the 30-year-old finds any big-league success hinges on whether he and the Brewers develop a capable fastball. His changeup and gyro slider have flashed potential as solid offerings, but opponents have destroyed anything hard, at all levels. Zimmermann’s fastball and sinker have combined for a -22 run value in his relatively small MLB sample and yielded a .731 slugging percentage. It’s been a similar story in Triple-A, where hitters have slugged .529 against them across the last two years. The veteran has addressed this issue by refining his sinker. Over the offseason, he worked on its shape at Tread Athletics, where he was filmed generating up to eight more inches of arm-side run on his sinker than the 13.2 he averaged last year. Those movement numbers will be the ingredient to watch if he appears in a Cactus League game with Statcast tracking. 2B/C Anthony Seigler Seigler was a unique talent in high school, starring as both a switch-hitting catcher and a switch-pitcher. The New York Yankees selected him with the 23rd overall pick in the 2018 draft, but injuries stalled his progression through the minors. Finally healthy in 2024, Seigler enjoyed something of a breakout season at Double-A Somerset, hitting .234/.350/.398 (118 wRC+) with 12 home runs. The 25-year-old will be in Brewers camp after signing a minor-league deal in November, where he’ll get a chance to showcase a skill set the Matt Arnold-led front office has increasingly emphasized throughout its position player core. Seigler has an excellent eye at the plate, boasting a career 17.6% walk rate as a professional. He’s a versatile defender with experience behind the plate, at second base, and in the outfield. In 118 games last season, he stole 29 bases. While he did not receive a big-league deal like Blake Perkins did two years ago, Seigler could join him as a late-blooming former Yankees prospect who settles into a valuable bench role. With continued progression in the upper minors to start the season, he could leapfrog a few catchers and infielders on the organizational depth chart. View full article

On the inaugural day of spring training, the Brewers shored up their rotation depth with a very Brewers signing. Image courtesy of © Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images The first day of Brewers camp was a busy one for pitching news, culminating in a new addition to the staff. The club announced on Wednesday afternoon that it had signed left-hander Tyler Alexander to a one-year major-league deal. Alexander, 30, has bounced between starting and long relief throughout his six-year career, starting 52 of 143 career games while posting a 4.55 ERA, 4.70 FIP, and 118 DRA-. The Tampa Bay Rays poached him off waivers from the Detroit Tigers a year ago, but he was an unsuccessful development project, pitching to a career-worst 5.10 ERA with matching peripherals in 107 ⅔ innings in 2024. That led to a non-tender in November. Uninspiring results notwithstanding, Alexander meets what have practically become prerequisites for occupying a bulk role in Milwaukee. He won’t miss many bats, running just a 19.1% career strikeout rate, but he mixes in a variety of distinct shapes within the strike zone, including the three-fastball mix Chris Hook loves. Since his debut in 2019, Alexander’s 5.2% walk rate is the 13-best among qualified pitchers, and he threw five pitches at least 10% of the time last year. He tweaked that repertoire as a Ray. After experimenting with a slightly harder cutter with more backspin in his final season in Detroit, he returned to his usual slider-esque version. He traded his actual slider for a sweeper that averaged nearly 16 inches of glove-side movement. Finally, he shed a tick of ride on his changeup and other two fastballs. These changes gave Alexander a more cohesive east-west arsenal. If one were to draw a diagonal line across his pitch movement plots, it would fit more cleanly with his 2024 clusters. Think of Alexander as a left-handed version of Colin Rea, with less velocity (only about 90 MPH on his fastball) but a wider movement spread. It’s a profile the Brewers’ pitching development crew has maximized several times in recent years; expect them to draw from a similar bag of tricks as they further massage Alexander’s pitch shapes and sequencing. The southpaw adds needed depth to Pat Murphy’s rotation mix. Brandon Woodruff told reporters that he’s fully healthy but will progress through a gradual buildup as he returns from shoulder surgery. DL Hall is a few weeks behind schedule due to a lat injury. That leaves Alexander, Aaron Ashby, and Connor Thomas as leading candidates for the fifth starter gig. View full article

The right-hander was a better pitcher after his move to Milwaukee in every way—except one. He must keep the ball in the park to carve out a high-leverage niche. Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images The Brewers could trade former closer Devin Williams in December because they possess an embarrassment of riches in the bullpen. Even with each reliever ascending one notch on the totem pole, the group should remain one of baseball’s best in the coming season. Trevor Megill handled the ninth inning with aplomb last season while a back injury sidelined Williams through the first half, and he appears the favorite to return to the role. Jared Koenig, Joel Payamps, and Bryan Hudson were impressive in setup roles. Abner Uribe needs more work controlling his triple-digit sinker and fiery temperament on the mound, but his tantalizing stuff keeps him in the late-inning conversation. Aaron Ashby could return to the bullpen this year, and prospects Jacob Misiorowski, Craig Yoho, and Logan Henderson may emerge there in a few months. It’s easy for flamethrowing Nick Mears to get lost in the shuffle. However, he may be as likely as anyone to assume an elevated role near the end of close games, at least to start the season. It didn’t happen down the stretch in 2024, after the Brewers sent pitching prospect Bradley Blalock to the Colorado Rockies to bring Mears to the Midwest. Opponents lit him up for a 7.30 ERA in 12 ⅓ innings, interrupted by a month-long stay on the injured list. The move was as much for the future as the short term, anyway. Mears was a development project with two additional years of control, and the Brewers hoped to maximize the elite stuff of a reliever with a career 4.93 ERA at the time of the trade. Optimizing his pitch usage presented an avenue for doing so. Notice in the visual below how the release and trajectory of Mears’s curveball have greater and earlier separation from his fastball and slider. Between the two breaking balls, his short slider created a tighter tunnel with his heater, yet he used both breaking offerings at nearly equal rates as a member of the Rockies. Mears started ramping up his slider usage in July and continued doing so as a Brewer, relegating the curveball to a show-me pitch against left-handed batters. The change made Mears more deceptive in most aspects of his brief post-trade work. He was in the strike zone more often, induced more in-zone whiffs, and coaxed more chases, fueling significant improvements to his strikeout and walk rates. Team Z-Contact% O-Contact% O-Swing% SwStr% K% BB% COL 83.9% 54.7% 30.2% 11.8% 28.1% 10.3% MIL 73.2% 53.8% 34.7% 17.2% 34.0% 5.7% That growth was drowned by a spontaneous home-run explosion. After allowing two all year with Colorado, Mears coughed up five with his new club. Mears, whose arsenal resembles Megill’s, will always battle the long ball. However, whereas the latter will likely see his home run rate rise in 2025, Mears appears due for positive regression in that realm, at least relative to his existing Brewers sample. His 1% home run rate and 4.2% HR/FB ratio at the time of the trade were unsustainably low; the second-half shift to the other extreme left him with a more realistic overall 2.7% home run rate. Mears will almost certainly trend closer to that figure than his post-trade 9.4% homer rate. Still, rotten luck was only partially responsible for the power surge, so banking purely on stabilization may not be enough. Four of those five homers came against Mears’s fastball, which opponents began torching when they made contact, particularly at the top of the zone. While running into a few fastballs in a small sample happens often, hitters deliberately took bigger hacks at high heaters. Their average swing speed on fastballs at the top of the zone increased by several ticks across the top rail from Mears's time in Colorado to that with the Crew. Take, for example, this two-pitch sequence against Matt Carpenter. Both offerings were elevated fastballs. Carpenter took a massive cut at the first and came up empty. He did the same on the second and was right on time, launching it into the right-field seats. mears_carpenter_hr.mp4 Mears adjusted how he came set midseason, after an opponent told him he was tipping pitches. Whether the issue took a new form in Milwaukee or he indeed masked his tell, hitters down the stretch appeared increasingly expectant of velocity at the top and acted accordingly. Fixing Mears starts with reducing confident swings against high fastballs. He and the Brewers could explore a couple of solutions. They could eschew high targets for more low-and-away heaters or throw fewer overall. In two dominant postseason outings, Mears threw 13 sliders and 12 fastballs. Perhaps he does need to mix in curveballs as slower pitches that also start at the top of the zone, even if it’s not the best conventional tunnel. If he was still tipping, further adjustments to his pre-pitch routine and mechanics are in order. With pitchers and catchers reporting this week, Mears enters camp among the arms with something to prove in Cactus League play. New looks from the right-hander may soon emerge as a story. View full article

The Brewers and their former ace can see the light at the end of the tunnel in his recovery. However, Pat Murphy's initial spring update was a reminder that more work and potential complications still stand in the way of a successful return. Image courtesy of © Rich Storry/USA TODAY Sports Brewers pitchers and catchers do not report to camp for a few more days, but the first nugget regarding a major spring training storyline has already surfaced. Earlier this week, Pat Murphy revealed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Todd Rosiak that rehabbing pitcher Brandon Woodruff is unlikely to open the 2025 season on the active roster. That may be disheartening news to some, especially after Woodruff spoke positively of his status weeks ago, telling MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy that he was following his standard offseason training program after doctors cleared him to do so. It’s not a surprising development, though, nor is it a sign that Woodruff is behind schedule. It’s simply the first of what will be several reminders of the long and challenging road he faced after undergoing shoulder surgery and the murky prognosis that accompanied it. Elbow injuries have become alarmingly commonplace among professional pitchers, but corrective surgeries and rehab procedures are well-researched, straightforward, and reliable. Furthermore, while the elbow absorbs plenty of stress from the torque of throwing a baseball at high velocities, it’s a hinge joint with a limited function in the throwing motion. Shoulder operations are different. Not only are such surgeries less common, but the shoulder is a ball-and-socket joint responsible for moving the entire arm. Significant injury and repair leave more strength and range of motion to rebuild in recovery, creating a longer timeline, more potential roadblocks, and a greater risk that the pitcher cannot recapture his previous form. The Brewers have witnessed such complications firsthand. It took Jimmy Nelson nearly 21 months to return from what was almost a complete shoulder reconstruction. He resurfaced with a dramatically different arsenal — including a cutting four-seam fastball instead of a running one — that he couldn’t control, walking 16.2% of batters in 22 ineffective innings in 2019. Nelson found brief success as a reliever with the Los Angeles Dodgers before additional injuries ended his career. Aaron Ashby underwent a torn labrum repair in April 2023 and later characterized his rehab as adjusting to a new shoulder. He limped to an 8.60 ERA in 91.0 minor league innings from September through the following August, running an 18.9% walk rate while pitching with diminished velocity. He did not look like himself until a late-season move to the bullpen. Woodruff had a stronger starting point in his recovery. He required repair to only his anterior capsule during surgery instead of his entire shoulder and was more mechanically sound with better control than Ashby when healthy. Still, limited case studies of such procedures paint the probability of future success as a coin flip. Those invested in Woodruff's comeback attempt should discern that his physical recovery and productivity will progress on different timelines. He'll be healthy enough to pitch sometime in 2025, but his performance may take another year (or longer) to stabilize. Woodruff estimated he won’t have a reliable grasp on his post-surgery stuff until the second half of this upcoming season. If he must reinvent his approach without elite velocity, it will take time. The ZiPS projection system is optimistic about his rate output, forecasting a 3.44 ERA in 81 innings, but it’s unaware of the context surrounding his comeback attempt. If Woodruff approaches 100 innings as a capable back-of-the-rotation starter, it will constitute a successful comeback season in light of his journey, even if he may not view it that way. As one of the fiercest competitors in the Milwaukee clubhouse, Woodruff will be chomping at the bit to return to a big-league mound. The Brewers already established offseason guardrails for him, including no velocity readings, and will hand down more in the coming weeks. He may spend more time on the backfields and in minor-league games than in front of a public audience on the main field. Woodruff's return to the big-league mound will be one of the top stories in Brewers camp. It may take a bit longer than hoped, and he’s unlikely to be the pitcher he was before surgery, especially in 2025. Patience will be key. View full article

Recent Brewers pitching staffs have been islands of misfit toys, with some hurlers succeeding through deception and others with impressive raw stuff. Their recent signing straddles the line between both approaches, meaning Chris Hook and company must decide between two distinct paths to maximize his arsenal. Image courtesy of © Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images The first sentence of the teaser paragraph above is not news to fans or analysts who have followed the Brewers closely in recent years. Last year, starters like Colin Rea, Tobias Myers, and Aaron Civale used great deception to help their unremarkable (or even poor) pitches play up. Relievers like Devin Williams and Trevor Megill—and, to lesser extents, Jared Koenig, Joel Payamps, Aaron Ashby, and Elvis Peguero—relied on remarkable velocity, movement, or both to close out late leads. It’s not a hard and fast rule. Bryan Hudson is among baseball’s most deceptive pitchers as a reliever, and Freddy Peralta’s raw pitch traits are his strength as a starter. For the most part, though, the Brewers have built around pitch-masking over stuff in the rotation, and vice-versa in the bullpen. Enter Elvin Rodriguez, whom the club signed to a split contract a few weeks ago. The 26-year-old stands with a foot in each realm, featuring a deep arsenal headlined by a couple of intriguing pitches. That means he could fit into Milwaukee’s staff in multiple capacities, but it also puts the pitching development brass at a potential crossroads in choosing the best way to further his development. Rodriguez was a starter before relocating to Japan, where he remained somewhat stretched out as a multi-inning reliever for Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yakult Swallows. He maintained his full six-pitch mix in 2024, and the chasm between the best and worst of his repertoire is wide. The standouts are a mid-90s backspin four-seamer and a deadly slider. Both will look slightly less impressive by comparison to big-league stuff upon Rodriguez’s Stateside return (those Stuff+ values are for NPB, and don't make direct comparisons to MLB offerings), but they’re still strong pitches that should headline his mix in any role. Rodriguez’s fastball averaged 18.7 inches of induced vertical break in the minor leagues in 2023, but his high-three-quarters arm slot and game plan of working the ball low and away to right-handers meant his -5.2 vertical approach angle was worse than average. In other words, it doesn’t have quite the rising illusion one might expect from his break numbers. Its carry is still decent, but it doesn't materially separate from what hitters anticipate when they see the ball out of his hand. His slider has the look of a plus pitch, even at the game’s highest level. With its 169 Stuff+ grade and 44% whiff rate, it was an elite pitch overseas. It performed similarly in Triple-A in 2023, where he added movement to morph it into more of a sweeping breaker while in the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Despite its fantastic performance, he deployed it just 13.1% of the time last year and at only a 19.2% rate against righties. That ought to change as a Brewer. Here's what his pitch movement looked like in that stint with Tampa in 2023; notice the slider moves more to the glove side than an average pitch of the same type, while the fastball is rising. The rest of his arsenal is well-rounded but less enthralling. Rodriguez’s curveball and changeup were great for inducing rollover swings, but the former rarely produced whiffs. NPB opponents destroyed his cutter. The extremely limited quantity of sinkers hints that it’s not yet a fully developed pitch, and it’s one Rodriguez may struggle to throw anyway from his slot. In the graphic above, you can see the extreme lack of vertical depth on the changeup, indicating that he might have a hard time pronating, which would make it harder to succeed with either the change or the sinker (though, not impossible). There’s enough here for the Brewers to apply the deceptive kitchen-sink approach, especially if they think Rodriguez can contribute as a bulk pitcher. Tightening up the cutter and sinker would give him the three-fastball mix they love, and a respectable curveball and changeup should help stave off a severe platoon split. It’s an unexciting swingman profile, but contending teams need such pitchers to stay afloat throughout a lengthy regular season. Rodriguez has a higher ceiling as a short-range reliever, where he could excel as a true “stuff” hurler. Instead of spending time fine-tuning his fringe pitches, he and the Brewers could scrap them and maximize what he does best. Simplifying his game plan to a heavy dose of sliders and elevated fastballs, plus some curveballs and changeups to lefties, could transform Rodriguez into a high-strikeout monster in the middle innings. With pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training next week, more information is coming regarding Rodriguez’s role. In the meantime, it’s easy to envision two distinct paths for his Brewers tenure. His new coaches have no shortage of ways to mold his arsenal as they deem best for his output and the club’s needs. View full article