Jack Stern

Trevor Megill earned his status as the favorite to take over the ninth inning for good, but a driver of his previous success may evaporate in 2025. That holds implications for the evolving late-inning picture in Milwaukee. Image courtesy of © Denny Medley-Imagn Images Trevor Megill fits the archetype of a dominant late-inning reliever. He’s big, standing 6-foot-8 and weighing just shy of 260 pounds. He throws hard, averaging 98.8 miles per hour with a four-seam fastball he threw 72% of the time last year. Megill’s approach is simple: fire the ball within the strike zone and let his raw stuff do the work. There are no gimmicks. For flamethrowing relievers who lean predominantly on riding heaters with minimal horizontal movement, extreme outcomes are common. Hitters often swing hopelessly late, underneath the ball, or both, particularly at the top of the zone. When they time it up, though, the pitch’s velocity and shape mean it screams off the barrel in the air. A Jekyll-and-Hyde act is common for these kinds of relievers, sometimes within a single outing. They're untouchable in most plate appearances but get crushed when they're not. The result is often extreme strikeout and home-run rates, and an amusing juxtaposition of elite swing-and-miss numbers with jarring quality-of-contact metrics. Josh Hader is the most prominent example from recent Brewers history. Megill mostly lived up to that profile in 2024. He punched out 27.3% of opponents while generating whiffs on 29.7% of swings, but he also allowed an average exit velocity of 91.2 mph and a 42.4% hard-hit rate (percentage of batted balls hit at least 95 mph). Among pitchers to throw at least 30 innings, his 35.6% fly ball rate was the 19th-highest. There was one key difference, though: he evaded the long ball. Megill allowed just four home runs in 46 ⅓ innings. Only 2.2% of opponent plate appearances ended in a homer; the league average was 3.0%. Despite being an extreme fly-ball pitcher who surrendered plenty of loud contact, Megill’s 7.1% home-run rate on fly balls was less than half the league average of 15.6%. That made him an extreme outlier, even though most fly-ball pitchers do allow fewer homers as a percentage of their fly balls than others. Within the aforementioned list of pitchers, there were 38 who allowed a fly-ball rate of at least 30% and a hard-hit rate of at least 40%. Their average HR/FB was 16.5%. Megill was one of just two hurlers with a single-digit rate, trailing only Carlos Estévez’s 6.1%. In other words, it’s highly improbable for a pitcher to allow so much loud contact and so many fly balls while having so few of them leave the yard. Megill’s case was partially explainable—he allowed just a 33% hard-hit rate on fly balls last year, another thing typical of fly-ball guys (since usually, when a hitter hits a fly ball off a fly-ball pitcher, the pitcher won the battle to set the trajectory of the batted ball)—but given the small sample size, his arsenal, and the documented year-to-year inconsistencies of HR/FB, it cannot be reliably identified as a legitimate and repeatable skill. That holds implications for Megill and the structure of a post-Devin Williams bullpen. He handled closing duties with aplomb as Williams recovered from stress fractures in his back, and he's the leading candidate to slide back into the role moving forward. Asking him to replicate the near-automatic dominance of Milwaukee closers before him was already a tall order, and the threat of the long ball means the Brewers should be prepared for less stability in the ninth inning than they’ve enjoyed in recent years. Megill will still be a vital member of Pat Murphy’s bullpen, but he’s more likely to be a solid reliever moving forward than an elite one. With a league-average HR/FB, he would have had a home-run rate around 3.8% in 2024, vaulting from the right side of average to the wrong side of it by about the same distance. For 2025, Steamer and ZiPS each project an ERA between 3.40 and 3.50, partially because of the home runs. The Brewers, who boast one of the deepest relief corps in baseball, will still do fine with that version of Megill. He's earned consideration to close without an interim tag, but even if he lands the job out of spring training, the club should entertain the possibility that someone else may emerge as the best candidate. Megill's home-run rate could become one of the more impactful factors in how Murphy conducts the late innings. View full article

The veteran slugger was not moving like his old self in his first season in Milwaukee. Can he rediscover his past form, or is this the new normal for the next stage of his career? Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images In Year One, the partnership between Rhys Hoskins and the Milwaukee Brewers was a mixed bag. While the veteran first baseman quickly settled into a role as one of Pat Murphy’s clubhouse pillars, the same was not true on the field. Hoskins came to Milwaukee with a career line of .242/.353/.492 (126 wRC+), averaging 36 home runs per 162 games. He hit 26 home runs in 2024, but slashed just .214/.303/.419 for a 100 wRC+. As a league-average hitter and a poor defender at first base, the 31-year-old was a replacement-level player, finishing the year with 0.1 fWAR and -0.2 bWAR. After the worst season of his career, Hoskins (unsurprisingly) picked up the $18-million player option for 2025 that always appeared to be a safety net in case he was not his former self upon returning from ACL surgery. While the Brewers presumably would prefer to offload that salary—and the $4 million they will owe him in a mutual option buyout next winter—via trade, such an opportunity always seemed unlikely. Hoskins is expected to return for a second season in the Cream City, with both parties hoping for improved performance. The former Phillie joined the Brewers with a reputation as a feared fastball hitter. Hoskins was one of 385 hitters from 2017 through 2022 to log at least 500 at-bats that ended on a four-seamer or sinker; his .559 slugging percentage against those pitches ranked in the 88th percentile, and his 16.6% whiff rate ranked in the 62nd percentile. The ability to handle velocity laid the groundwork for consistent power production throughout the first six seasons of his career. Hoskins held his own against hard stuff at the top of the zone, whiffing less than the average right-handed hitter. Hoskins didn’t do much damage against up-and-in fastballs, nor did he hit the ball particularly hard when pitchers tried to bust him inside. Instead, he could fight off the heater high and tight and hit the remaining inside fastballs at ideal launch angles for line-drive hits. In the clip below from 2022, Hoskins fouls back a 99-mph fastball from Spencer Strider in a full count. 22-high-fb-foul.mp4 Here he is taking a 94-mph Miles Mikolas fastball on the inner third back up the middle for a base hit. Hoskins didn’t crush this ball, hitting it just 84 mph, but he got started early enough and caught it far enough in front of him to line it at an ideal 14-degree launch angle for a clean single. 22-inside-fb-1b.mp4 Finally, here’s a firmer liner hit when Sandy Alcántara attempted to eat him up inside with a 99-mph sinker. 22-low-fb-1b.mp4 The theme across these pitches is how quickly Hoskins turned on them. He had the strength and mobility to seamlessly shift his weight from his back leg to power an explosive but controlled swing. Channeling and transferring that lower-body strength brought his hands through the zone at the right time and angle to meet the ball in a good spot, producing solid contact. Hoskins still slugged a respectable .442 against four-seamers and sinkers in 2024. However, that was a stark decline from his most productive seasons, and a deeper dive reveals more red flags. Instead of hitting fastballs all over the zone, his production was mostly limited to ones over the middle of the plate. Hoskins could no longer catch up to many of the high fastballs he could previously fight off. His whiff rate on four-seamers and sinkers spiked along the top rail of the zone. What was once a key driver of his success was now a weakness, imparting a trickle-down effect that dampened his production. When hitters can react successfully to elevated velocity, waiting back on soft pitches and even fastballs at the bottom of the zone becomes easier. Losing that ability puts them behind the 8-ball, often prompting a pivot to guess hitting. They may try to anticipate hard stuff, and start their swings earlier to reach it. An incorrect guess leaves them hopelessly out in front of any other pitch. Hoskins often looked like a hitter trying to cheat for velocity he could not otherwise reach. It worked decently at times, as he still punished mistakes. However, it often left him ahead of pitches he once handled capably. From 2022 to 2024, his slugging percentage dropped from .374 to .316 against breaking balls and .563 to .479 against offspeed pitches. His pull rate jumped to a career-high 52.6%. In 2024, an elevated 99-mph fastball near the hands often made Hoskins look helpless. The empty swing in the clip below was a frequent sight. 24-high-fb-whiff2.mp4 So, too, was this routine groundout against a low-and-in fastball. 24-low-fb-gb2.mp4 Instead of fighting off the high fastball, catching the inside one with the sweet spot of the bat, and crushing the mistake, Hoskins was late on the high pitch and ahead of the low one. The former produced more whiffs and pop-ups, and the latter yielded weak rollovers because he pulled off out in front of the pitch. Hoskins spent most of the year caught in between, the most dreaded space for any hitter’s timing. Compare the foul ball clip with the swing-and-miss one. Hoskins’s movements are less compact and lack explosiveness. The stable lower half is no longer present to bring his torso with it, so his upper body lags behind as it drags through. He got the front hip open earlier on the left, generating the torque to whip the barrel through and find the ball. For hitters with long swings, like Hoskins's, that's the key to hitting the inside pitch. He wasn't doing it in 2024. Some of these trends were already present early in the year, even as Hoskins mirrored his established output with a .233/.340/.474 line and nine home runs through May 13. The issues worsened when he returned from a hamstring injury at the end of that month, forgoing a minor-league rehab assignment to play in a homecoming series in Philadelphia. Hoskins hit just .213/.289/.313 in June, displaying reduced bat speed. For most of the season, Hoskins looked like a player without his legs under him. Now, an additional year after surgery, the question is how much of that lower body strength and mobility will return in his second year in Milwaukee. His outlook is muddied by the fact that he is likely exiting his physical prime. Hoskins will turn 32 in March, the age at which swing speed begins to decline steadily. Most projection systems forecast only marginal improvement in 2025. Steamer expects a 106 wRC+, ZiPS a 105 OPS+, and Marcel a .229/.311/.425 slash. PECOTA is more pessimistic, assigning Hoskins a 50th-percentile line of .209/.292/.386. That would constitute another underwhelming season for Hoskins and the Brewers, who will almost certainly bank on internal improvement to replace Willy Adames in the power department. Both player and team would benefit significantly from a bounce-back showing by the slugging first baseman. Restored health and mobility could help him rebound from a career-worst season, but that shouldn't be expected. Instead, Hoskins will have to prove he can turn back the clock. View full article

In the face of injuries, the Brewers successfully built most of their rotation on the fly with pitchability at the core. Newly-developed arsenal models present a way to quantify it. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Last week, Baseball Prospectus unveiled its latest line of pitch arsenal metrics. Unlike most models developed in recent years, which attempt to boil the various attributes of a pitch into a single stuff-based rating, these measurements try to quantify deception and the interplay between pitch types. More specifically, these metrics are designed to study how deeper arsenals can be effective, even if they may not jump out stuff-wise. Models like Stuff+ often favor relievers, who usually throw two or three pitches at high velocity for no more than one turn through an opposing lineup. By contrast, starting pitchers must give hitters more looks to counter increased familiarity with each at-bat and work deep into games. The complete primer is free to read here, but to summarize, the folks at Baseball Prospectus developed four metrics to measure how effectively pitchers with several pitch types create deception: Pitch Type Probability: The probability a hitter will correctly identify a pitch before he must make a swing decision, based on release point, early trajectory, and the count in which the pitch was thrown. Movement Spread: The size of the distribution of possible pitch shapes. In other words, how great is the variation of movement the hitter could see on any given pitch? Velocity Spread: The same as movement spread, but for velocity. Surprise Factor: How surprising the pitch’s movement was to the hitter based on movement spread. Some important caveats are that deception alone does not correlate with success, nor is it a total replacement for great stuff. A pitcher with less deception but nastier pitches may enjoy better results than a pitcher with more deception but worse stuff. There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for productive pitching. Rather, several permutations of stuff, deception, command, and sequencing can lead to positive outcomes, with the precise mix varying for each hurler. Deception played a key role in the 2024 Brewers’ success in building a patchwork rotation amid a myriad of injuries. This site has featured plenty of coverage directly from the clubhouse about how Chris Hook and company value and maximize masking pitches, whether it entailed encouraging pitchers to throw multiple fastball variations or adding pitches to fill gaps in a pitcher’s movement spread. It is unsurprising, then, that such a staff was filled with standout performers in these new metrics. Most of Milwaukee’s bulk pitchers had some of the least impressive stuff in baseball, but they succeeded by making it extremely challenging to identify what pitch they had thrown before hitters had to make a decision. That’s a tower of blue in the stuff column and a sea of red throughout the rest of the table. Colin Rea, Frankie Montas, and Tobias Myers, each of whom took turns carrying the rotation for stretches, had some of the lowest pitch type probabilities in the league. Those who didn’t were soundly above average in multiple other categories. None of these guys overpowered hitters with raw stuff, but they created a challenging at-bat by making pitches look similar out of hand, giving hitters wide ranges of movement and velocity to cover, violating their expectations with a pitch’s movement, or all of the above. These figures also further explain why the Brewers targeted pitchers like Montas and Aaron Civale as midseason additions to the rotation. Neither had inspiring numbers at the time, but both had the deceptive potential the Crew has handled well in recent seasons. New models rarely introduce breakthrough discoveries about effective pitching. Instead, they quantify what most baseball people already knew, making those skills and strategies easier to identify, develop, and repeat. That’s the case here. Mixing speeds and locations while making everything look similar to the hitter at release has always been among the keys to working deep into games. As these stats are refined further and more granular splits become available to the public, there will be opportunities for further analysis. For now, they present a more concrete way to recognize pitchability while shedding more light on how the 2024 Brewers kept chugging along by turning overlooked pitchers into quality innings-eaters. View full article

Bob Uecker wasn't just the voice of Brewers baseball. He was Brewers baseball. What's more, he encapsulated everything that makes this sport great. Image courtesy of © David Kohl-Imagn Images A teary-eyed Christian Yelich stood at his locker as media flocked toward him from various corners of a dejected clubhouse. The Brewers had just endured a stunning ninth-inning gut punch in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, one that abruptly ended their season and extended their postseason woes. Yelich didn’t talk about the game. Instead, he spoke about Bob Uecker, who minutes earlier was making the rounds through a stunned and somber room. From afar, his conversation with Yelich appeared to be a heavy one. Milwaukee’s longtime left fielder quickly explained that while the loss stung, the interaction was what spurred his visible emotion. “It’s special every time he’s around,” Yelich said. “You shouldn’t take it for granted. He’s the man. He means a lot to this place. Anybody that’s spent any kind of time here knows how special Bob is.” Three months later, Uecker passed away after a private battle with small-cell lung cancer, 10 days shy of his 91st birthday. As the baseball world mourned and reflected on Thursday afternoon, Yelich confirmed what could be reasonably inferred from both men’s emotional state and his comments that night: he knew that Uecker’s storied career—the one constant that linked over five decades of Brewers baseball—had come to an end. “I think that’s kind of why that last game was emotional as it was,” he said. “Because I think privately, a few of us kind of knew that was likely the last one that would have Bob as a part of it. “It was kind of hard to process at that time that after all this, this is kind of how the last one was going to be.” Yelich was among the very few who knew of Uecker's illness, which the broadcaster kept private from both the public and most of the organization. Those who didn’t know had little reason to suspect anything was seriously wrong; Uecker still brought to the ballpark the same enthusiasm, sharp wit, and personable demeanor that made him a beloved figure inside and outside the clubhouse. “He still showed up every day and was the same old Bob,” Yelich said. “If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t have known.” Still, there were hints throughout the season that Uecker’s storied run as the team’s primary radio voice was nearing its conclusion. While he still called many home games, his presence at American Family Field was not as frequent as it once was. Whether he would assume the mic that night was often a relatively last-minute decision, and his broadcast partners attended every game prepared to cover all nine innings if he didn’t feel up for it. Uecker was present at all three Wild Card games, but only called the final one. As he consoled a hurting clubhouse after the Mets closed out the Brewers, Uecker’s uncertain future became the elephant in the room, compounding the gravity of what was already a crushing loss. Not every locker room would feel such deep emotions over a broadcaster, but this was Bob Uecker, whom the players fully embraced as an equal, role model, and adored friend. “He was one of them,” Mark Attanasio said. “Everybody knows he’s got a locker downstairs [in the clubhouse].” During recent playoff clinchers, the players fully displayed their reverence and love for Uecker. The Brewers have reached the postseason in six of the last seven seasons, and Uecker was right in the middle of most of those celebrations. “The reason that we all celebrated with him is because he had such a tremendous impact on our success,” Ryan Braun said. “We didn’t do that just because we liked him as a person or because of who he was in his legendary career. We did that because he genuinely impacted each of our lives, baseball careers, and team success.” “They often reached out to him for career advice,” Attanasio said. “And he was able to deliver them career advice and be candid while not being negative. That’s very hard to do.” “I think he always had our back no matter what, and he was always pretty passionate about that,” Yelich said. “I think that for each team who took the time to celebrate with him, what we were trying to tell him in those moments was like, ‘You’re one of us,’” Braun added. “He celebrated more than our biggest partier players, frankly, when we won,” Attanasio recalled. Brandon Woodruff's first impactful experience with Uecker came during the first of those celebrations. The Brewers played a wild September 2018 contest in St. Louis, defeating the Cardinals to clinch their first postseason berth since 2011. “I remember him coming in, and I’m like, ‘Oh, man, Bob Uecker’s in here in the clubhouse with us.’ Everybody’s just pouring champagne and beer on him, he’s dancing, he’s doing all this crazy stuff, and I’m just thinking, ‘Man, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’ I remember getting to take a selfie with him, and I still hold that picture dear. It’s in my favorites album in my phone.” After that season, Woodruff snapped a new picture with Uecker whenever the Brewers clinched. “You never knew what he was going to do or say in those celebrations,” Yelich said. “You knew something funny was about to happen but didn’t really know what, in true Bob style. He was as much a part of it as we were.” Uecker once again stole the show amid a celebration last September, when the Brewers clinched a second straight division title and their third in four years. Before the bottles popped, Pat Murphy silenced the clubhouse as Uecker made his way to the center of the room. “We didn’t want to start the celebration until Bob was able to make it down into the locker room, because it just wouldn’t have felt right if he wasn’t there and wasn’t a part of it," Yelich explained. Murphy put his arm around Uecker and addressed the room. “There is no one who epitomizes a champion the way this man does,” he said. Uecker’s off-color response after the players doused him with champagne: “I peed my pants!” He was just as special to those who did not know him personally. Every Brewers fan has fond memories of Uecker. For many, he was the voice who introduced them to the magic of baseball and fostered their lifelong love of the game. He was the soundtrack to countless Wisconsin childhood summers. He made the darkest seasons in franchise history bearable, and nearly every positive milestone has an equally legendary Uecker call inseparably linked to the moment. The fact that his signature voice never ceased commanding attention, even as other broadcast media grew in popularity, speaks to how special he was. I’m the youngest member of the Brewers beat and grew up in an era when nearly every game was aired on television, but Uecker was still integral to my baseball fandom. If I didn’t scream, “Get up! Get up! Get outta here! Gone!” in an admittedly awful Uecker impression after launching a home run in a childhood wiffle ball game, I could hear his voice in my head making the call as I rounded the imaginary bases. He was part of annual family vacations up north, where listening to him around a late-night fire was the perfect conclusion to long days of fishing. Video highlights dubbed with his calls filled my social media feeds. Harry Doyle quotes are mainstays in my vernacular. As a teenager, Uecker’s conversational but poetic style of narrating a game – seamlessly engrossing you in one of his countless stories while keeping you entirely in tune with the on-field action – made long evenings at my mundane after-school job tolerable. I’d usually throw an earbud in and stream the radio broadcast, but other times, I would adjust the boombox in the back room to AM 620 and crank up the volume. There was a rule against playing loud music during shifts, but no one, even those who were not ardent baseball fans, objected when Uecker’s voice reverberated through the building. Years later, I found myself in the same clubhouse as him. I won’t pretend to have the treasure trove of stories and experiences of longtime reporters and broadcasters. Still, I was blessed to be personally introduced to him, and a small handful of encounters were all it took to see Uecker’s energy and legendary aura emanate throughout any room he entered. Everyone wanted to talk to him, and he always seemed happy to oblige. Uecker was not just the voice of Brewers baseball. He was Brewers baseball. As a talented broadcaster and entertainer, he could have left Milwaukee and enjoyed a successful media career anywhere else. Instead, he viewed those other opportunities as side gigs, remaining fully committed to baseball in his hometown and building a legacy that will never fade throughout the rest of this state’s history. That did not stop him from receiving the national attention he deserved. Uecker earned the moniker of “Mr. Baseball” by being a fantastic representative of the game and, in many ways, of everything that makes it so beautiful. Baseball unifies; as a broadcaster for the local nine, Uecker created bonds between generations and brought a state together. Baseball is fun; with his countless stories and signature humor, listening to Uecker always made you smile. By profoundly impacting the sport after failing in previous roles as a player and scout, he reminded the world that anyone can have a place in this game. Attanasio summed up his legacy well. “My dad used to say that every time you make someone laugh, you add 15 minutes to his life. I’ve known Bob for 20 seasons now. He’s added several years to my life. He brought out the best in all of us. He’s really the heart of Milwaukee baseball, Mr. Baseball.” View full article

The southpaw's stuff and sequencing were better than ever after he moved to the bullpen, and he could carry most of that maturation back into a rotation role. Image courtesy of © Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images After toiling in the minor leagues for much of last season in his return from major shoulder surgery, Aaron Ashby shifted to relief for the Brewers in August. He immediately became a multi-inning bullpen weapon for the Brewers down the stretch, pitching to a 1.37 ERA and 0.78 FIP with a 36.8% strikeout rate in 19 ⅔ innings. Ashby’s velocity and command were greatly diminished when he returned to game action in September 2023, and they showed few signs of improving across his 14 starts with Triple-A Nashville in 2024. After resurfacing in the big-league bullpen, though, his average sinker velocity climbed to 97.2 mph, and his walk rate fell to 3.9%. The turnaround in a different role was the latest development in the years-long discourse over Ashby’s best long-term fit within Milwaukee’s pitching plans. The spontaneous improvement in how the ball left his hand presents a compelling case for keeping him in shorter stints. However, despite pitching as a reliever, Ashby’s arsenal became more nuanced than in past big-league stretches, a development that could carry over to one final crack at starting. Ashby’s excellent breaking pitches have always been his calling card, and he’s always leaned heavily on them. He ramped up his sinker and four-seamer usage for much of the year in Nashville, perhaps in an attempt to ease his troubles with finding the strike zone, but reverted to the more breaker-centric mix upon his relocation to relief. That changed when Ashby was called back to the big leagues. He reshuffled his pitch selection, starting with using his sinker more than he had in any extended big-league stint. Left-handed batters saw the sinker 55% of the time. The pitch performed better than ever. Ashby’s sinker was worth -10 runs from his major-league debut through his last big-league start on Jun. 5; it was worth 4 runs down the stretch as a reliever. Opponents managed just a .213 wOBA and .244 xwOBA against it. Increased velocity was undoubtedly a factor, but so was improved location. Ashby threw his sinker in the strike zone 63.7% of the time as a reliever, the highest rate of his career in a two-month span. Significantly more of those sinkers were of the comeback variety to the glove-side corner. Keeping the ball closer to the right-handed batter’s box helped Ashby generate called strikes on 26.2% of sinkers, a bump from the 20.2% he had averaged to that point in his career. It also made it more challenging for hitters to shoot back up the middle, which had been a catalyst for Ashby’s previous struggles with the pitch. Ashby also fine-tuned his breaking stuff. He closed the velocity gap between his slider and curveball by adding several ticks to the latter, and the former assumed more downward movement. With these adjustments came new plans of attack. Previously a change-of-pace pitch, the firmer curveball became a weapon against right-handed hitters, overtaking the slider and changeup. While the slider played just fine to righties, the curve’s greater break down and in proved even more challenging for opposite-handed batters to track. Ashby threw them the hook 30% of the time, and they managed just one hit against it while whiffing on 64.3% of swings. His confidence in the pitch made plate appearances against Ashby daunting and unpredictable. He would spin the curveball practically in any count to a right-hander. He still featured plenty of sliders against lefties, particularly as a put-away pitch, but Ashby also mixed in some curveballs when he needed to land a strike early or after falling behind. How much of a game-changer was the new curveball? From his return on Aug. 25, its 164 Stuff+ was the sixth-best of all curveballs across baseball, and its 51.2% called strike plus whiff rate ranked first. DL Hall’s curveball was a distant second at 39.5%. The urge to keep Ashby in the bullpen permanently is real and warranted. He’ll almost certainly shed some velocity upon stretching back out. However, assuming he loses only a couple of ticks, many adjustments that spurred his late surge are independent of how hard he throws. As he enters his age-27 season, Ashby has emerged from significant professional adversity as a more mature pitcher. He’s transformed a good curveball into an elite one, developed greater confidence and awareness when throwing his sinker, and knows the best way to mix his pitches depending on the matchup. Ashby is not the same pitcher he was during previous rocky attempts at starting. The bullpen will be Ashby’s ultimate home if he can’t throw with the necessary conviction while pacing himself to work five or six innings. For now, however, it remains possible his dominance in relief proves to be a springboard to future success in the rotation. Reynaldo López, Seth Lugo, Michael King, and Michael Lorenzen are among the recent hurlers who initially struggled as starters, broke out in the bullpen, and successfully transitioned back. Matt Arnold was coy about Ashby’s future role at the end of the season, but Pat Murphy and Chris Hook have expressed a desire for him to compete for a rotation spot in spring training. After a long journey, the ingredients are finally ripe: a reliable fastball, two excellent breaking pitches to limit platoon splits, a capable changeup, and a rare mix of strikeouts and ground balls. Don’t be surprised if he gets one more crack at reaching his starter’s ceiling. View full article

The arbitration system favors teams over players, so no one should be surprised that the Brewers are following the league-wide procedure of taking one of their best players through it. Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Arbitration is a dreaded topic in all baseball circles. Hearings are unpleasant. Players, coaches, and executives don’t like talking about them, and reporters and writers don’t enjoy covering them. Unfortunately, those discussions will again be part of the Brewers' news cycle leading into spring training. For the third time in six years, the club will almost certainly go to and win a hearing against one of its star players. This time, it’s William Contreras. Teams and players seek to avoid hearings if possible and succeed in most cases, but salary settlements are tougher to reach with elite players. The Brewers reached agreements on 2025 contracts with every arbitration-eligible player on their roster except Contreras, whose camp filed at $6.5 million. The club countered at $5.6 million. While teams can continue negotiating with players until the minute their hearing begins, don’t expect Contreras and the Brewers to settle. An extension to buy out his arbitration seasons, like the one Devin Williams signed a year ago, feels like a long shot. As a 27-year-old coming off consecutive seasons of more than 5 fWAR, Contreras likely feels comfortable letting his performance dictate salary bumps from one year to the next until he hits free agency at age 30. Understanding why the Brewers drew a line less than $1 million shy of Contreras’s request requires awareness of what arbitration is, and is not. It’s a confusing process compared to the more straightforward procedure of signing contracts with free agents, so here’s a quick primer. Arbitration allows productive players to receive significant raises in their final three seasons before unrestricted free agency, but it is not designed to award them the salaries they would command on the open market. If he became a free agent today, Contreras would easily find a nine-figure contract. FanGraphs's WAR-based value metric estimates that his production last year was worth $43.5 million. He and the Brewers filed at less than 15% of that number. Instead, the process is heavily steeped in precedent. Each side builds its case and arrives at its proposed salary figure by comparing the player’s statistics and accolades to those of a similar player in the same arbitration year. They present their cases to a panel of arbitrators, who decide whether the player will receive the salary he requested or the one his team chose. Most players do not enter arbitration after a precedent-breaking performance, so agents and executives have similar notions of a realistic salary request. This can make it easier to agree on a figure and avoid a hearing. Things get hairy when elite players seek to break the norm and establish higher baseline arbitration salaries. Contreras’s camp requested what would be the highest first-season arbitration salary for a catcher since Buster Posey’s $8-million agreement with the San Francisco Giants ahead of the 2013 season. Posey shattered the salary precedent because he crushed the on-field one the year before; he hit .336 with 103 RBIs, won the NL MVP and Silver Slugger awards, and accrued 9.8 fWAR, the single-season record for a catcher. No catcher since has come close to that production, so neither have their salaries. The baseline for first-time arbitration-eligible backstops of Contreras’s caliber has sat slightly over $5 million for a decade. Year Player First-Year Arbitration Salary Previous Season fWAR Career fWAR 2013 Buster Posey $8,000,000 9.8 15.2 2013 Matt Wieters $5,500,000 4.1 12.6 2018 JT Realmuto $2,900,000 4.8 6.9 2023 Will Smith $5,250,000 4.3 11.9 2024 Jonah Heim $3,050,000 4.0 7.3 2025 Adley Rutschman $5,500,000 2.8 13.3 2025 Cal Raleigh $5,600,000 5.4 13.9 2025 William Contreras TBD 5.4 13.1 The Brewers filed at the same salary the Seattle Mariners and catcher Cal Raleigh (also in his first year of arbitration) agreed to earlier on Thursday. That’s not a coincidence; it’s the established rate for a catcher in Contreras’s position. Hard-line stances in arbitration—more specifically, a refusal to willingly go much higher than established salaries, if at all—have become standard practice across baseball. The arbitration process is flawed in how it compensates players and heavily favors clubs. Because each case draws on those before it as a baseline, giving certain players the unprecedented salaries they request without a hearing would erode the system’s benefit to teams. Professional baseball is a business, and the shrewd businessman does not undermine an institution that gives him an advantage. This is why the Brewers sparred in hearings with Josh Hader and Corbin Burnes. Hader filed at a record $6.4-million salary for a first-year arbitration reliever, and Burnes sought a record $10.75 million for a starting pitcher in his second arbitration year. The front office could have accepted, but doing so would have created a ripple effect on future salaries. Instead, it drew a hard line and let the arbitration process play out. Every other team would have done the same. The process will repeat with Contreras. The Brewers will not directly argue that he is worth only $5.6 million, but that he is similar in value to Raleigh, who settled for that amount. Contreras’s side will argue that he’s been a more valuable catcher than those who went through similar cases before him, justifying a near-unprecedented $6.5 million salary. Given their career numbers, the Brewers’ comparison is very reasonable. Raleigh and Contreras are nearly identical in the two flavors of WAR that incorporate catcher defense. While the latter has a higher wRC+, the former has more home runs and RBIs, two traditional counting stats still heavily valued by the panel. Player G AVG OBP SLG wRC+ HR RBI fWAR WARP Cal Raleigh 464 .218 .296 .444 111 93 251 13.9 13.4 William Contreras 449 .277 .358 .465 126 68 239 13.1 12.2 This hearing will almost certainly take place, and the Brewers will almost certainly win. Their spokespeople will make arguments that can hurt feelings and sour relationships, just as they did against Hader and Burnes. Contreras won’t be alone, either. Assuming most clubs take “file-and-trial” approaches with unresolved cases, here are a few seemingly insignificant salary disagreements over which teams will go to a hearing next month: the Cubs and Kyle Tucker ($17.5 million vs. $15 million) the Cardinals and Lars Nootbaar ($2.95 million vs. $2.45 million), Brendan Donovan ($3.3 million vs. $2.85 million), and Andre Pallante ($2.1 million vs. $1.925 million) the Dodgers and Alex Vesia ($2.35 million vs. $2.05 million) the Red Sox and Jarren Duran ($4 million vs. $3.5 million) the Yankees and Mark Leiter Jr. ($2.5 million vs. $2.05 million) This is a league-wide procedure, not one exclusive to small-market teams operating on lower payrolls. In almost every case, no front office willingly raises the bar for player compensation in arbitration. It's not a nefarious scheme specifically concocted by Mark Attanasio and Matt Arnold to cut costs where other organizations are not. It’s part of the established MLB playbook, and the Brewers are just one of 30 teams who follow it. It’s not fun to discuss. The business side of baseball often feels slimy, and the system is unfair to players. However, none of that changes the present reality facing Contreras and the Brewers. By understanding the process, both parties can handle an unpleasant situation professionally. View full article

The Brewers' backstop has already emerged as a star, but still has not tapped into the extra gear in his bat for a full season. Could this be the year that changes? Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Since the Brewers acquired him two offseasons ago, William Contreras has authored a compelling case as one of baseball’s top catchers, if not the best. Since the start of the 2023 season, the 27-year-old’s 128 wRC+ leads all qualified backstops. He’s also been a workhorse, catching the fifth-most innings during that span. Contreras leads the position in fWAR (11.2) and ranked second in WARP (9.8), two of the leading metrics for estimating a catcher’s all-around value. As valuable as he’s been, though, Contreras is still underperforming his physical capabilities, especially in the batter’s box. Already a strong hitter, he has the tools to be among the best at any position and a potent power threat. Contreras swings hard, posting an average swing speed in the 86th percentile of hitters in 2024. He hits the ball hard, finishing in the 91st and 94th percentiles in hard-hit rate and average exit velocity, respectively. However, Contreras’s production on those batted balls lags behind much of the company he keeps. Most players who hit this many screamers in 2024 boasted a wOBA on contact near or exceeding .450. Contreras finished the year with a .412 wOBAcon – an impressive mark compared to the league average, but well behind most hitters in his exit velocity stratosphere. Several hitters who generated less velocity off the bat were vastly more productive with their contact. That’s because Contreras pounds the ball into the ground more than nearly any regular in baseball, let alone those who hit it this forcefully. His 54% ground-ball rate last year was the third-highest among qualified hitters. According to Statcast, 39.2% of his contact was “topped,” or hit at a launch angle below or equal to zero degrees. That was the sixth-highest rate in the sport, well above players with comparable average exit velocities. While Contreras has hit for decent power as a Brewer, launching 40 home runs and adding 75 doubles, hitting so many rockets into the dirt is placing unnecessary limits on his output. If left unaddressed, his home run output will more likely decrease than increase. Over the last two seasons, only two hitters have topped more batted balls with an exit velocity of at least 100 mph than Contreras. He’s posted a .362 wOBA on those grounders, outpacing a .239 xwOBA by punching many of them through the hole to the opposite field. However, that output is probably not replicable to that extent, even if it’s a real skill Contreras possesses. More importantly, it pales in comparison to his .935 wOBA and .941 xwOBA on batted balls with a triple-digit exit velocity and positive launch angle. For a more practical illustration of the power Contreras is leaving on the table and how reasonably attainable it is, let’s compare him to a similar hitter. As a speedy shortstop who hits from the left side with even greater bat speed than Contreras, Baltimore Orioles superstar Gunnar Henderson is not a perfect equivalent. However, he’s plotted directly above Contreras on the first graph. The two are nearly identical in how hard they hit the ball, their tendencies to spray it across the field instead of consistently pulling it, and how often they make contact. Despite these shared traits, Henderson posted a significantly higher xwOBAcon and smashed 37 home runs, 14 more than the Milwaukee backstop. Player BIP K% Pull% Middle% Oppo% Hard Hit% Avg EV (MPH) Barrel/BIP% LA GB% wOBAcon HR wRC+ Gunnar Henderson 475 22.1% 36.6% 40.0% 23.4% 53.9% 92.8 11.2% 9.2 47.4% .454 37 155 William Contreras 459 20.5% 36.6% 39.2% 24.2% 49.0% 92.8 10.0% 6.1 54.0% .412 23 131 Henderson’s launch angle was only three degrees higher, and still well below the league average of 13.3 degrees. It’s a meaningful difference from where Contreras is now, but getting there would not require radically reshaping his identity as a hitter. Making incremental improvements could have massive results. Pictured below is Contreras’s launch angle distribution from last season, color-coded by which kind of contact was the most productive. He spent too much time living in the -5-to-10-degree range, where his production was fine but unremarkable. Compare that to Henderson, who is hardly a launch-heavy hitter but spent more time hitting high line drives and low fly balls, conducive to much greater power output. Both players hit most of their home runs with a launch angle between 25 and 30 degrees. Henderson’s contact quality in that range was a bit better than Contreras’s, but the latter still hits those fly balls loudly enough for similarly impactful results. By elevating just a bit more, Contreras should easily reach 30 home runs and approach a 150 wRC+. That would be a massive boost for an offense that will almost certainly have to replace most of Willy Adames’s power in-house. The good news, of course, is that it might already be happening. Contreras stepped up (and swung up, as it were) when Christian Yelich went down for the season in late July. Starting the day after Yelich's last game of the year, he batted .275/.394/.530 in 241 plate appearances to finish the season, good for a 153 wRC+. He swatted 12 home runs in that span. Even then, though, his launch angle only crept up to 8°, and he topped the ball at a similar rate. Another tiny step forward is possible, and it would beget a giant leap in production. The Brewers have an untapped offensive monster near the top of their lineup, in their star catcher. Coaxing even a modest increase in launch from Contreras should be among the chief priorities for a restructured hitting staff headed by recently-promoted Al Leboeuf. It could emerge as a significant storyline early in the 2025 season. View full article

The Brewers are dipping back into what's been a fruitful corner of the reliever market for them. This time, they've grabbed a funky right-hander coming off a tough 2024 season. Image courtesy of © Troy Taormina-Imagn Images The Brewers added an intriguing arm to their bullpen mix on Thursday evening, acquiring right-hander Grant Anderson from the Texas Rangers for minor-league left-hander Mason Molina. Reliever Tyler Jay was designated for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man roster. At first glance, Anderson's big-league resume is uninspiring. In 62 ⅓ innings, he has pitched to a 6.35 ERA and 5.91 FIP, allowing 2.31 home runs per nine innings. His 2024 numbers with Texas are even more ghastly: an 8.10 ERA and 7.59 FIP in 26 ⅔ innings. However, he's had some success at Triple-A, where he has posted a 3.87 ERA and 32.7% strikeout rate. Funky left-handers Hoby Milner and Bryan Hudson broke out in Milwaukee in recent years, where the Brewers' pitching development brass helped them maximize the extreme angles they can create with their unique arm slots. They're taking on a similar project in Anderson, but from the right side. He mirrors Milner in many ways, starting with how he releases the baseball. Their arm angles both averaged -3 degrees last year. As unorthodox as Milner's delivery is, Anderson's is even more chaotic. He seemingly has yet to find the best version that gives him the proper mix of deception, repeatability, and ability to execute pitches. As a rookie in 2023, he came set closed off from the hitter, twisted so far that his back was parallel with home plate, brought the baseball behind his head toward first base, and then slung it with a crossfire delivery. 2023.mp4 Believing this delivery to be detrimental to finishing his pitches, Anderson came to Rangers camp last spring having toned things down dramatically. He started less closed off, truncated the twist with his leg kick, kept his throwing hand closer to his glove when he separated them, and rerouted his crossfire stride to be more direct to the plate. spring_2024.mp4 The 27-year-old used these new mechanics in his first three big-league outings of the year before a demotion back to Triple-A, but the changes would be short-lived. By the time he resurfaced with the Rangers in late April, he had settled on a delivery somewhere between the previous two iterations. The twist was back, though slightly less extreme than before. The separation between his throwing and glove hands remained quieter. april_2024.mp4 With these mechanics, Anderson is closer to where he should be – his delivery is still funky but more restrained and repeatable. Still, it would not be surprising if Chris Hook identified and implemented additional tweaks to help him use his body most effectively. He lost a few inches of extension from 2023 to 2024, something the Brewers may seek to restore. They could also nudge him across the rubber toward third base, but his crossfire delivery might make it challenging to command his pitches from such an extreme angle. Anderson's low-to-mid-90s velocity is notably higher than Milner's, but their pitch mixes are similar. From his sidearm slot, Anderson throws a heavy sinker and changeup, a four-seamer, and a mostly horizontal breaking ball. The slider is his most oft-used pitch. It resembled a cutter in his debut season, but in 2024, Anderson fashioned it into more of a true slider with more sweeping action. He slashed its velocity from 85.3 to 82.2 mph and increased its horizontal break from 2.1 to 7 inches. The sinker has plus movement, averaging -2.2 inches of induced vertical break and 17.2 inches of horizontal break. That makes it challenging to elevate; big-league opponents have managed a 47.5% hard hit rate against it, but an average launch angle of -1 degree and 4.9% barrel rate have kept them from driving it for extra-base hits. As a sidearmer, Anderson does not create much carry from backspin on his four-seamer. The pitch averages just 10 inches of induced vertical break. However, that's three more inches than Milner's four-seamer, so Anderson creates greater separation between his two heaters. The four-seamer also plays up at the top of the zone due to Anderson's low slot. This gives it an elite vertical approach angle of -3.7 degrees and creates an upshoot angle that leads hitters to swing under the ball. Anderson's four-seamer has induced whiffs on 36.4% of swings, but opponents crush it when they make contact, slugging .855 with a 51.4% hard hit rate, 25.7% barrel rate, and an average exit velocity of 93.7 mph. Ten of the 16 home runs he has allowed have come off a four-seamer. As a Ranger, Anderson's pitch usage prevented him from maximizing his potential. He was two different pitchers based on batter handedness. Right-handers saw almost exclusively sliders and sinkers; left-handers saw high four-seamers, sliders, and changeups. Given that his sinker and slider are his two best pitches and his four-seamer has been hit the hardest, it's unsurprising that Anderson has suffered from massive platoon splits. Righties have hit for a modest .668 OPS, but lefties have torched him for a 1.201 mark. While Anderson's four-seamer can be deceptive, it's not nearly good enough to warrant a usage rate of over 50% against most hitters. Because it lacks remarkable velocity or movement, overexposure turns it into a batting practice pitch. Rooting his mix at the bottom of the zone makes those occasional sidearm four-seamers at the top challenging to hit. Milner ran into similar problems in his first season as a Brewer. Using his four-seamer 52.9% of the time, it yielded a .719 slugging percentage. He fixed the issue by reintroducing his sinker and eventually mixing both fastballs to all hitters. Milner's four-seamer induced significantly more whiffs after these changes, and opponents hit under .150 against it in each of the last two seasons. Anderson should follow a similar path. The Brewers will likely instruct him to live on sinkers and sliders at the bottom of the zone – against both righties and lefties – while sprinkling in timely four-seamers for swings and misses at the top of the zone. Expect Anderson to neutralize his platoon splits by properly mixing his top three pitches, no matter the matchup. Anderson still has one minor-league option season remaining, so he may ride the 2025 bullpen shuttle instead of immediately becoming a mainstay. However, he has more upside than Jay. He's more deceptive and, with the right tweaks, can provide a productive mix of weak contact and strikeouts as a durable middle reliever. The Brewers certainly see long-term value here. While Molina's shortcomings as a pitcher could raise hurdles in his development, he was Milwaukee's seventh-round pick in last year's draft. Matt Arnold parted with legitimate value to land Anderson, who could become his latest savvy bullpen pickup. View full article

After previously announcing an arrangement under which the Brewers would have produced their telecasts and distributed them through Major League Baseball, the club is returning to the status quo by re-upping with Diamond Sports Group. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images The Brewers have reached a new agreement with Diamond Sports Group to produce and distribute 2025 game telecasts on FanDuel Sports Network (previously branded as Bally Sports), the club announced on Tuesday. "The media landscape is complex and evolving rapidly, but our top priority is to ensure that Brewers games are available to fans regardless of where they live and how they connect to the broadcasts," Brewers President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger said in a media release. "For many years, our television ratings have remained among the highest in baseball; the team has enjoyed a consistent run of success on the field and the future is promising with some of the game's best and brightest stars calling Milwaukee home. We look forward to working with FanDuel Sports Network to deliver the best content in and around our game telecasts." The news is a course reversal from the previous plan for Brewers telecasts. After the team's contract with Diamond expired after the 2024 season, it announced that MLB Advanced Media would assist in producing and distributing telecasts moving forward. This arrangement would have enabled fans to stream games through a Brewers-specific MLB.TV package without blackouts and opened the possibility of the team producing and broadcasting expanded content via streaming and its own cable and satellite channels in the future. Separating from Diamond and going the MLB route also presented financial challenges for a team in baseball's smallest market. The Brewers' television rights deal was a major source of revenue for the club. Ownership downplayed the loss by pointing to other revenue streams like ticket and merchandise sales, sponsorships, and revenue sharing, but operating without a broadcast deal almost certainly put the club in a financial bind. Other teams to re-up with Diamond this offseason, including the division-rival St. Louis Cardinals, have accepted reduced revenue from their previous deals. Even if that's the case here, the new agreement presumably gives the Brewers more cost certainty than the alternative. While unlikely to dramatically alter the course of a quiet offseason, it could eliminate the need for further payroll cuts or add enough wiggle room for another middle-tier addition. For fans, access to broadcasts will remain largely the same as in recent seasons. Those living within the Brewers' regional broadcast market can watch games on cable if their provider carries FanDuel Sports Network or can purchase a FanDuel Sports streaming package. New for 2025, in-market fans can also stream games through Amazon Prime Video as an add-on subscription. Out-of-market fans can continue watching on MLB.TV but remain subject to local blackouts. FanDuel Sports Network will carry all regular-season Brewers games not selected for national broadcasts. The pregame and postgame shows for each telecast will also return in their usual 30-minute format. View full article

The crafty left-hander is not quite the same pitcher as the recently departed swingman, but several attributes position him as the heir to his innings. Image courtesy of © Jim Rassol-Imagn Images Days before shipping Devin Williams to the New York Yankees in what’s likely to be one of their most significant offseason transactions, the Brewers added a couple of left-handed pitchers to their 40-man roster during the winter meetings. One of them was Connor Thomas, whom Milwaukee plucked from the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate during the big-league round of the Rule 5 draft. Per the rules of the draft, Thomas must spend at least 90 days on his new team’s active roster in 2025 and cannot be sent to the minor leagues without passing through waivers and then being offered back to his original club. That inflexibility may seem suboptimal for the Brewers, but it should not be an issue if Thomas proves helpful in his projected role. Taking a flier on a Rule 5 pitcher is nothing new for the Brewers, but this one differs from past selections. The club isn’t hiding a reliever in the bullpen as part of a long-term development project as it did with Wei-Chung Wang a decade ago. This is not a shot on an upside reliever like the Gus Varland selection. Instead, it’s a cost-effective means of filling an unglamorous but essential role within a successful run-prevention unit: versatile length. Colin Rea and Bryse Wilson were useful in that capacity across the last two seasons, eating up 473 ⅔ innings with a competitive but unremarkable 95 ERA- (100 is average, lower is better). When other pitchers sustained injuries or battled inconsistency, Rea and Wilson kept the ship afloat with their steady availability. Despite that production, the Brewers waived both at the onset of the offseason, evidently deducing from the growing red flags in their profiles that their most productive seasons were behind them. That presumably left finding the next Wilson or Rea – a durable and flexible innings-eater who keeps his team in the game in most of his appearances – as a key item on Matt Arnold’s winter checklist. Thomas profiles as that hopeful successor. Unlike Rea and Wilson, who succeeded by inducing decently struck fly balls that a core of speedy outfielders could run down for outs, Thomas is a ground-ball specialist. Instead of a running two-seamer with limited depth, his primary fastball is a heavy sinker. Those differences aside, his other traits point to him filling a similar role. In a broad sense, Rea and Wilson found success by tweaking the shapes of their unassuming pitches, learning the best ways to sequence them, and executing them well enough to induce the kind of contact the Brewers’ defense could convert into outs. Thomas, rated by FanGraphs as having 60-grade command of a five-pitch arsenal, is already on a similar trajectory. The southpaw tightened up his cutter shape, shedding about an inch of induced vertical break on average and giving it more consistent cutting action (keeping the movement to the right of the vertical axis in the graphs below). After experimenting with a bigger slider during the final months of 2023, he morphed it into a sweeping breaking ball that averaged 12.6 inches of lateral movement. The cutter and slider now have cleaner and more consistent separation. Struggles against right-handed batters plagued two disappointing seasons for Thomas in Triple-A, but their wOBA against him plummeted from .383 in 2023 to .281 in 2024. He accomplished that turnaround by attacking right-handers more diversely. He balanced his pitch usage against them, and instead of consistently pitching around the knees with his natural sink, he worked every quadrant within or near the strike zone. Since adding the cutter late in 2022, Thomas has used it primarily up-and-in to righties. That location works with his low three-quarters release as a 5-foot-11 left-hander to create an uncomfortable angle for the hitter. The high cutter appears to bore in on them as Thomas slings it toward them. Jared Koenig and Robert Gasser are other low-slot lefties who weaponize their cutters similarly, and Wilson himself often pitched this way to left-handers. The pitch was not effective for Thomas in 2023. In particular, righties ambushed the cutters he threw at the knees. After those unproductive attempts at mixing in low cutters, Thomas kept them elevated to a greater extreme in 2024. He threw more cutters above the zone than in the lower third. For those high cutters to be effective, at least one other pitch must work in conjunction with them. That seemingly led Thomas to a somewhat unorthodox strategy: throwing more sinkers right down the middle and in the upper third of the zone. There’s a method to the madness. Throwing sinkers over the center of the plate instead of down and away created tighter tunneling with high cutters. The sinker also became the anchor off which the rest of Thomas’s arsenal plays. It forced hitters to start by looking down the middle, only for his other pitches to cut, sweep, ride, or dive in every other direction. They had more to cover, and locking in on a particular quadrant became more challenging. The location graphics below (plotted by Thomas Nestico’s Pitching Summary web app) visualize this effect. Notice how Thomas’s sinker locations in 2024 overlapped more with each of his other pitches. Improved pitch shapes, better tunneling, and two added ticks of fastball velocity enabled everything to fall into place in 2024. After consecutive seasons with an ERA north of 5.00 in Triple-A, Thomas posted a 2.89 ERA, 3.87 FIP, and 86 DRA-, all the best full-season marks of his professional career. The right-handed whiff rate against his cutter doubled, and their slugging percentages against every pitch in his arsenal dropped by over 100 points. While Thomas worked almost exclusively in relief for the first time this past season, most of the drivers behind his improvement are not correlated to pitching in shorter stints. He also remained somewhat stretched out, frequently pitching multiple innings and recording nine or more outs in six appearances. For these reasons, it’s unsurprising that the Brewers will evaluate him as a starter in spring training. They did the same with Wilson. When Thomas arrives in camp, expect to see many of the same adjustments he enacted a year ago. There’s room for more tweaks, though. He currently pitches from the third-base side of the rubber; sliding him toward first base could create a more extreme crossfire angle for right-handed batters, and it may help him hide the ball better against lefties, who posted a .343 wOBA against Thomas over the last two years. His changeup shape and usage could also undergo modifications. Thomas threw more changeups to right-handers than sinkers, and they slugged just .324 against it with a 35.7% whiff rate, but it comes in just six mph slower than his sinker on average with similar movement. Unless he develops greater separation between his changeup and sinker, the Brewers may emphasize the latter more while recasting the former as an occasional change-of-pace offering. Only two teams threw changeups, splitters, and forkballs at a lower rate than Milwaukee in 2024. With at least five starters ahead of him on the depth chart, Thomas is most likely to settle into Wilson’s niche as a flexible bulk reliever who makes occasional spot starts. Becoming the next Rea is a higher-percentile outcome. Either way, he’s a cerebral pitcher with a deep arsenal who is growing into the most deceptive way to utilize it. His results should play up in front of an elite infield defense, and he’s precisely the kind of pupil who has found success with guidance from Chris Hook and company. View full article

Chris Hook and company excel at helping pitchers maximize the deceptiveness of unremarkable stuff. They should avoid some of their go-to tricks with the Brewers’ latest rotation addition, who marches to the beat of a unique drum. Image courtesy of © Bill Streicher-Imagn Images The Brewers have well-oiled systems in place to maximize pitcher performance, even if their velocity or pitch shapes do not turn heads. Milwaukee hurlers enjoy the built-in benefit of an elite defense that turns would-be hits into outs, but they also level up their performance by creating as much deception as possible. Newly acquired Nestor Cortes will receive a boost from excellent outfield defense, but Chris Hook and friends cannot pull out many of the same stops with him that they have for most pitchers in recent years. While they almost certainly have a small tweak or two in mind, Cortes is already plenty deceptive in different ways than any other Brewers pitcher—and most across the league, for that matter. While the Brewers craft a personalized development plan for each individual, their broader methodology for making pitches harder to recognize and track is pretty consistent. They create the most extreme angle from which a pitcher can execute and equip his arsenal with multiple pitches that have different shapes but look similar out of the hand. To create tough angles, some pitchers move to one edge of the rubber, modify their arm slot, or both. That’s what made Bryan Hudson’s fastball, which averages 90 to 92 mph with neither remarkable carry nor unusual run, so challenging to square up. His height, extension, arm slot, and positioning on the rubber create an off-putting visual for the hitter. Hook is also a firm advocate of throwing multiple fastball variations. Because these pitches spin in similar directions, it’s challenging for the naked eye to differentiate them immediately. The pitches’ trajectories separate as they approach the plate: a sinker runs to the arm side, a cutter breaks late to the glove side, and a four-seamer remains straighter, with more carry. Someone with all three can work both sides of the plate and the top of the strike zone with pitches that all appear to have the same spin after release. Twelve of 25 Brewers who threw at least 10 innings in 2024 used two or more kinds of fastballs at least 15% of the time, and six threw three variations regularly. Colin Rea, Frankie Montas, and Bryse Wilson applied this strategy especially well, with the latter also moving to the third-base edge of the rubber to better bust his sinker inside to right-handed hitters. For most Brewers pitchers, promoting deception begins with keeping as many things as possible looking the same for as long as possible. Changes to one’s arm slot, extension, or positioning on the rubber remain constant across every pitch. It’s tough for opponents to know what’s coming until the ball is close to the plate, because everything looks nearly identical leading up to that point. Cortes does the opposite. He creates deception through chaos and inconsistency. The crafty southpaw is well-known for mixing windups and arm slots in attempts to throw hitters off-balance. Freddy Peralta varied the pacing of his windup with three distinct leg kicks down the stretch, but that’s tame in comparison to the exploits of his new rotation mate. It’s the same case for arm angle – Peralta’s rose slightly in the second half, but Cortes’s release points were wide-ranging and unpredictable. In that sense, he’s the inverse of Rea, who excelled at delivering every pitch from the same slot. In the charts above, Cortes’s release cluster is an amalgamation of different arm slots. Some are subtle variations of his default slot, but others are him dropping down to throw sidearm. The chaos has worked. Since the start of the 2021 season, Cortes has pitched to a 3.33 ERA, 3.68 FIP, and 3.84 FIP with a 4.06 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He posted similar numbers in 2024, while tossing a career-high 174 ⅓ innings. Cortes is a uniquely successful pitcher, not a reclamation project like Rea, Montas, Aaron Civale, and Tobias Myers. As such, don’t expect the Brewers to alter much. If anything, Hook may apply his eye for mechanical adjustments to make Cortes’s windup and arm slot alterations more seamless than ever. The more noticeable change the Brewers may pursue is developing a true two-seamer. Cortes’s release point chart indicates he throws a sinker, but only from the sidearm slot. This is Statcast misclassifying sidearm four-seamers: By dropping his arm, Cortes changes the shape pretty dramatically to resemble a two-seamer. Pitch MPH IVB HB 4-Seam/Sinker, Arm Angle ≥ 35° 92.1 19.2 4.9 4-Seam/Sinker, Arm Angle ≤ 30° 90.1 13.8 12.1 In its current form, the sidearm fastball is a show-me pitch. Cortes throws most of his pitches closer to a three-quarters slot, so “two-seamers” accounted for just 1.2% of his offerings in 2024. If he threw a legitimate one from his primary arm slot, it could become a mainstay in his arsenal. The pitch would play well with his riding four-seamer and cutter. If the Brewers see potential for a balanced three-fastball mix, they’ll almost certainly pursue it. Hook will not deprive Cortes of what makes him unique. He always says that the Brewers focus most on what each pitcher does best. However, the front office has recently handed him several pitchers suited for similar methods of masking their pitches. Cortes is a different breed, so Milwaukee’s pitching development brass should embrace the chaos and only apply sporadic elements of their usual deception blueprint. 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When a team can option an unestablished player to the minor leagues, that added flexibility often makes it easier to keep him on the 40-man roster. That’s not as much the case for the Brewers and one of their top prospects. Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images Tyler Black’s first tastes of the big leagues were brief and unsuccessful. The Brewers selected his contract at the end of April, but he only appeared in 18 games, slashing .204/.316/.245 (68 wRC+) in 57 disjointed plate appearances. Despite entering the season as Milwaukee’s No. 4 prospect (according to MLB Pipeline), there was no place for Black on the big-league roster, and he did not push the envelope enough to create one. As things currently stand, it could be a similar story in 2025. There are openings in the lineup. While the Brewers added infielder Caleb Durbin as part of the Devin Williams trade last week, they still have an infield position with no designated starter. Unfortunately, Black did not take well to second or third base in the minor leagues, prompting the organization to move him to first base full-time for most of 2024. Black could be a left-handed complement for Rhys Hoskins at first base, but the Brewers may prioritize competent defense in that role. That’s why Jake Bauers remained on the roster over Black for the entire season, even as his bat cratered in the second half. Perhaps the Brewers view Andruw Monasterio as their best defensive backup first baseman, after he gained his first experience there in 2024. Black has two minor-league options remaining, so the Brewers face no pressure to shoehorn him onto the active roster. They can easily keep him in the organization without rostering him in the majors. At first glance, that may seem like the most compelling argument for hanging onto him instead of dangling him as offseason trade bait. This was why the Brewers could comfortably keep all of their young outfielders as potential logjams brewed. In the event of a roster crunch, they could option one of Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, or Blake Perkins to Triple-A to continue playing regularly. If injury or underperformance created an opening in the outfield, they could recall the demoted player and plug him back into the starting lineup. Mitchell and Christian Yelich’s injury troubles prevented that situation from arising, but the Brewers would not have been in a serious bind had everyone remained healthy. Every young outfielder had (and still has) options, which created roster flexibility. The odd man out would still serve as valuable depth on the 40-man roster because he’d have a direct path to contribute if any other outfielder went down. That’s not so for Black. He’s not an infielder, where his hands and instincts remain clunky. At this moment, he’s effectively confined to DH duty. While Hoskins’s poor defense means Black could fill in without a significant dropoff in the field, he’s not a clean replacement for any other player. Because they can play capable defense at several positions, Monasterio and Isaac Collins have more value as optionable depth. The Brewers can option Black to Triple A, but he’s an inefficient use of a 40-man spot, particularly if they have other plans for reinforcing their first-base depth. The harsh reality is that Black brings little value to this roster, as it’s currently constructed. If he’s rarely a realistic choice for a promotion, he is not genuine depth. Trading away an outfielder is the best way to change that. Black’s speed and athleticism should make him a capable left fielder, and he and Yelich could share time in left and at DH. However, he lacks Mitchell’s upside, Frelick’s experience, and Perkins’s elite glovework as a fourth outfielder. The Brewers may not be comfortable trading a known commodity to accommodate a player with limited outfield reps as a professional. The alternative is trading Black. It comes down to how the Brewers project each player to contribute in 2025 and what they can receive in return. Nothing is forcing a move, but Black’s odd profile and nonexistent fit may prompt them to shop him more aggressively. The depth argument for stashing him in Triple-A is less compelling than it is for other players. Making good on his prospect pedigree now via trade may be the best course of action. There is little question surrounding Black’s excellent plate discipline, bat-to-ball skills, and speed. In those senses, he fits in with his former minor-league peers who have formed a scrappy core throughout the Brewers’ lineup. His offense has a high floor and is MLB-ready. The problem is that his shortcomings render him too limited to fill the open roles on the big-league roster. As a result, he could find himself with another organization before getting a prolonged opportunity to establish himself in Milwaukee. View full article

The Brewers made the correct call to trade their star closer and received a fair return. Time will tell if they chose the right package. Hours after he completed a trade that sent Devin Williams to the New York Yankees for left-handed starter Nestor Cortes, infielder Caleb Durbin, and cash, the theme of Matt Arnold’s summary of the deal was balance. Balance is at the heart of the Brewers’ competitive vision. Playing in baseball’s smallest market, the club has made clear its approach to winning the franchise’s first World Series championship: build perennial playoff contenders instead of defined and limited windows that could require full-scale rebuilds after they close. That approach demands a constant balance between the short and long term. It means the Brewers must decide whether to keep star players for the final seasons of expiring contracts, after which they will not retain their services, or trade them for long-term assets. In some cases, it makes the most sense to trade the player, as the Brewers did with Corbin Burnes. Other times, the proper balance entails keeping them, as they did with Willy Adames. In Williams’s case, a trade was the proper decision and inevitable outcome. Even the best closers are one-inning relievers who typically have short shelf lives at baseball’s most volatile position. Among valuable contributors, they’re the most replaceable. That’s especially true for a Brewers club that produces new breakout relievers every season. This balancing act took a different shape than those before it, mainly because half of the return is also on an expiring contract. Cortes is projected to earn the same $7.7 million arbitration salary as Williams in his final year before free agency, but the Yankees sent $2 million to cover roughly a quarter of it. Arnold felt it was the right move to both support the 2025 Brewers and add a long-term contributor. “It’s a balance with both of the players involved,” he said. “I think the first is trying to help the team today, and we think we definitely do that with bringing somebody in with the pedigree of Nestor Cortes. Having been the opening day starter for the Yankees just a year ago, he brings a real stability to our rotation.” Cortes became the odd man out in a stacked Yankees rotation but profiles as arguably Milwaukee’s second-best starting pitcher. His peripherals since 2021 and in 2024 rival Freddy Peralta’s and put him ahead of other rotation options like Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale, DL Hall, and possibly what could be a diminished version of Brandon Woodruff after his return from shoulder surgery. Pitcher ERA- FIP- SIERA Nestor Cortes (2021-2024) 82 87 3.84 Nestor Cortes (2024) 94 91 4.02 Freddy Peralta (2021-2024) 83 86 3.55 Freddy Peralta (2024) 89 101 3.78 Tobias Myers (2024) 73 96 3.99 Aaron Civale (Career) 98 101 4.18 Aaron Civale (2024 MIL) 85 117 4.39 DL Hall (2024) 122 114 4.36 He’s a perfect fit for Chris Hook and company. Standing 5-foot-11 with unremarkable velocity, Cortes is not the flashiest pitcher. He mixes six pitches from a myriad of arm angles to keep hitters off-balance. Cortes relies heavily on his four-seamer and cutter but threw just 40 sinkers in 174 ⅓ innings. The Brewers will likely make the sinker a mainstay in his arsenal, adding the arm-side run he lacks in how he attacks hitters. Unlike Myers, Civale, and trade deadline acquisition Frankie Montas, Cortes does not need fixing. He’s already a reliable mid-rotation starter. The Brewers insist he is fully healthy after a late-season elbow scare, positioning him to be one of the most valuable members of the 2025 rotation. Durbin is the long-term piece in the deal and the player who could most impact how it ages. The Yankees were set to name him their starting second baseman before the deal, but he’s best suited for a utility role. His place on the roster has yet to be determined, but he figures to see plenty of big-league at-bats throughout 2025. Excellent plate discipline, productive baserunning, and versatility are his calling cards. In 375 plate appearances at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2024, Durbin walked (12.5%) more than he struck out (9.9%) and stole 29 bases. While primarily a second baseman, he also logged time at third base and shortstop with cameos in the outfield. At 5-foot-6, he’s one of the shortest players in professional baseball. His short levers give him excellent bat-to-ball skills, but there should be serious concerns about whether he will hit for any power against big-league pitching. Durbin’s average exit velocity in Triple-A was just 83.8 mph, and his barrel rate was just 3.3%. Beneath his .375 wOBA was a less-impressive .315 xwOBA. Durbin missed two months midseason with a broken wrist, an injury that often saps hitters of their raw power. Still, his 84.2 mph average exit velocity and 1.3% barrel rate in two months before the injury were similarly poor. At first glance, those are strikingly similar red flags to those of Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, two players whose lack of power has seriously limited their ceilings. In parts of two big-league seasons, Frelick has hit for an 88 wRC+ and Turang for a 76 wRC+. Whereas Frelick and Turang always employed a balanced approach that featured plenty of hits to the opposite field, Durbin is a heavy pull hitter. He pulled 56.4% of his contact in Triple-A while hitting most of those batted balls at ideal launch angles. That has allowed him to achieve greater power numbers than one would expect. He hit 10 home runs in the regular season and five more in 117 plate appearances in the Arizona Fall League. “You’ve seen him start to graduate and gravitate into a little bit more power as his career has progressed in a really good way,” Arnold said. “We saw that continuing to progress, especially in the fall league this year, while continuing to face higher-quality pitching.” Durbin pulled all 10 of his regular-season home runs and hit seven down the left-field line. Pulling line drives down the line also helped him hit 23 doubles. It worked well in the minor leagues but might not carry over to the big leagues. Durbin will face better pitching while playing in bigger ballparks where the ball does not carry as well. The fact that half of his home runs left the bat at less than 100 mph is alarming. Isaac Paredes led right-handed hitters with nine such home runs in 2024. No one else exceeded six, and every name in that tier of the leaderboard hits the ball much harder than Durbin. Durbin has a high floor, and his profile meshes well with the Brewers’ current offensive identity and scrappy mentally under Pat Murphy. “I called Murph earlier to talk to him about it, and he was pumped,” Arnold said. “He got to see a lot of him in the fall league, being located in Arizona, and he’s been watching him out there and said he loved the way this guy plays. Pat Murphy’s leadership, that’s exactly what he’s looking for, those kind of grinder-type players and guys that get the most out of their ability.” While the fit is clear from that standpoint, it also makes Durbin feel redundant. In Frelick and Turang, the Brewers already start two scrappy hitters with minimal power every day against right-handed pitchers. It raises the question of how many of them they can roster. It’s fair to wonder if the Brewers can better flank their existing core with more explosive athletes with greater power potential. Some of those questions could be resolved by further offseason moves. For now, Durbin and Cortes are a fair return for one year of Williams. It was not an earth-shattering package, but relievers with one year of control rarely command that kind of coup during the offseason. The immediate takeaway is that this deal has minimal risk of turning out poorly for the Brewers. They still have a loaded bullpen, their rotation is in better shape than it was before Friday, and they added a capable MLB position player. If Durbin hits for even modest power, it could prove another successful balancing act by Milwaukee’s front office. View full article