Jack Stern

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images When the Brewers reconfigured their pitching plans to give Jacob Misiorowski a 12-day layoff between starts over the All-Star break, it brought to the forefront what was already going to be a significant story in the second half: how would the team manage his innings down the stretch? "It's a big discussion. It's a big topic," Pat Murphy said before Misiorowski took the mound against the New York Mets on Monday night. "It's all sorts of concern, planning, discussion, sidebar discussion. It's mechanics, biomechanics, everything about it. Strength testing, all that. Thus, the reason for the layoff. Now, how do we ramp it back up?" Misiorowski entered the break having thrown 111 innings. Last year, he set a career high with 129 ⅓ regular-season frames between Triple-A and the big leagues, plus 12 more innings in the postseason. After the Brewers frequently let him work deep into games during the first half, he's on pace to exceed last season's workload by a huge margin. The conventional rule of thumb for young pitchers—or, at least, the oft-cited approach—is increasing innings totals by 20-to-30% each season. Under that approach, Misiorowski could make up to 12 more starts while averaging five innings per outing for the rest of the regular season. In reality, it's not that straightforward. "I think it's very individual, very individually based, and I think that everybody's kind of keeping things in mind," Murphy said. "Has he had an injury history? Did he go through some setbacks? All that type of thing." That 20-to-30% rule probably won't apply to Misiorowski. Many of those deeper outings featured few high-stress pitches. More importantly, after he put on good weight in his lower half last winter, the Brewers believe he's physically equipped for a significant increase in his workload. "Offseason last year, we focused on legs and doing all that stuff to get myself ready for this track of the year," Misiorowski said. "I feel good where I'm at and ready to go." "It factors, yeah," Murphy said. "I always say this: when you're training to run a marathon, you don't ever go out and run the 26, you know what I mean? You never do. … So I don't think you have to set a number [based on] only what he did in the past. I think you can plan for more than that." Ironically, Misiorowski didn't have his legs underneath him a few hours later. With his body out of sync, he threw just 47% of his four-seam fastballs in the strike zone, prompting an in-game adjustment to lean more on his cutter. "He didn't throw a commanded heater past the second inning," Murphy said. "He was kind of coming off his legs and kind of getting stuck, and then trying to get out of it, and the ball was sailing." Entering Monday, Misiorowski had thrown his four-seamer 63% of the time and his cutter 14% of the time. In his outing against the Mets, those usage rates shifted to 55% and 29%, respectively. He threw as many cutters as four-seamers the second time through the order. "Going cutter kind of forces me to be shorter," Misiorowski said postgame. "I wasn't really feeling the legs, so kind of overcorrected [with] cutters. It worked out." Seeing that his body wasn't moving efficiently, the Brewers ended Misiorowski's outing at four innings at 65 pitches. "We would have probably let him go further if his delivery and his legs felt great," Murphy said. "I think he was a little bit out of it. The long layoff kind of affected his delivery and everything else. I think it was important to notice that and get him out of there then." The outing was a preview of how the Brewers plan to handle Misiorowski moving forward, even on nights when he's locked in. They may delay a few outings for extra rest days as the schedule allows, but the nearly two-week layoff was a one-time deal as a midseason break. Instead, they'll shorten some starts by an inning or two. It's less disruptive to Misiorowski's routine and the team's bullpen usage than outright skipping his turn in the rotation. "I think we lean more towards that, to keep the consistency," Murphy said, while also acknowledging that finding an extra start during a given turn in the rotation is harder than patching in a few extra innings from multi-inning relievers. "When you have a natural break like we just did—we kept him out of the Pittsburgh game three, the big break, kept him out of the first series—I think we take that as kind of a reset. Now, I think we have to build him back up and be sure that we do it in a mindful way." The Brewers aren't perfectly equipped to toe the line with their young ace—as the trade deadline approaches, they need more depth in both the rotation and the bullpen—but their position in the standings affords them some flexibility. Misiorowski's dominance and volume are a big reason why Milwaukee boasts the best record in baseball and leads the NL Central by 7 games. They won't treat him with kid gloves, but they have some wiggle room to be cautious when it makes sense. View full article

Image courtesy of (C) Katie Stratman-Imagn Images Brandon Woodruff planned to address the media on Sunday afternoon about his future, but after speculation about that pending announcement spread quickly on Friday afternoon, he moved his press conference up a day to clear the air. “I’m not having a funeral or anything,” Woodruff said. Woodruff made clear that he is not retiring, which was how some interpreted Pat Murphy’s announcement on Friday that “the outlook isn’t good” regarding the right-hander’s latest shoulder injury. As forecasted, though, it was bad news: Woodruff will undergo another surgery to repair his right shoulder capsule, the same procedure he had after the 2023 season. “There's a couple other things that are going on that's not the real issue,” Woodruff said. “The real issue is the capsule. I'll have to get it fixed, and then go from there.” He hasn’t looked ahead at timelines, but for now, Woodruff plans to fully rehab and prepare to pitch again. “The good news is I know exactly what this rehab entails,” he said. “I'm never closing the door on pitching. Like, I'm getting this with the intention of rehabbing and taking care of that and being able to pitch again. But as far as like when that is, I haven't even looked at the dates.” The last time around, that rehab was a 20-month process between regular-season outings, although that included two delays for separate injuries (at least technically) unrelated to his shoulder. When he finally made it back, he pitched to a 3.20 ERA and 3.17 FIP in 12 starts and still struck out 32.3% of opposing hitters, despite predictably diminished fastball velocity. It was a similar story this year, as Woodruff posted a 2.98 ERA and 3.19 FIP. “Going forward, it's like, I know I can go pitch,” Woodruff said. “Yeah, I would love to have 95-plus, but I've always prided myself on being a pitcher. It's almost, your brain works in a way where it's more fun getting guys out like I've had to get them out the last couple years. So in terms of going forward for me, it doesn’t take the fact away that you can still go and pitch at those velocities.” “Him coming back that first time in Miami last year … just watching that happen, we’re just looking at each other like, ‘He's rolling,’” Murphy said. “And then he bumps a 95 or a 96 in there, and we’re like, ‘This guy’s doing it.’ And then the continuation of the way he went out there, he was in command.” Throughout that time, though, Woodruff faced repeated problems in or near his surgically repaired shoulder. His 2025 season was cut short by a lat injury. He and the Brewers said his shoulder was structurally intact, and the club extended a qualifying offer for the 2025 season, which Woodruff accepted. In his sixth start of the year, his four-seam fastball velocity dipped to 85.4 mph, and he ultimately missed seven weeks after having fluid drained from a cyst in his shoulder. The Brewers would not confirm it, but as he worked his way back, there were signs that Woodruff was making tweaks to his mechanics and pitch usage to prepare for another velocity dip. However, he looked like his usual post-surgery self in his return outing in Cincinnati, and he was solid again in his next outing against the Chicago Cubs. Woodruff said that he had no reason to believe another major injury was about to occur in his next start in Arizona. “Truthfully, leading up before Arizona, I'd had a good week leading in between,” he said. “I had nothing that indicated that what was going to happen on July the 4th in Arizona was going to happen. And honestly, I was in a good spot. I was throwing the ball well and felt fine.” It was a similar story to last time, coincidentally another start against the Diamondbacks. Woodruff’s velocity dipped into the mid-80s, and he departed in the fourth inning with Murphy, pitching coach Chris Hook, and athletic trainers. There was a more somber tone to this exit, an unspoken acknowledgment that it was more than a minor setback. “If you watched my reaction out there, I kind of knew it was bad,” Murphy said. “And then when I heard the news, really what the MRI revealed at first, it was like, none of this can be good.” That MRI showed a new injury to Woodruff’s anterior capsule. Another surgery will sideline him for 2027 and position him to return in 2028–if he successfully makes it back. Given their unclear outlook for recovery, already making it back from one surgery of this kind was a remarkable feat. Recovering from a second one to pitch again would be unprecedented. The last notable comparison was Johan Santana, whose career ended after he tore his capsule a second time. For now, Woodruff will try to beat the odds by taking things one day at a time. “The kid’s been coming back from adversity his whole career,” Murphy said. “I didn't know what I was getting into three years ago when I had surgery,” Woodruff said. “Thankfully, I've got that perspective now, which I think will benefit me, for sure. It's not going to be easy. I know it's going to be tough, and so I know what's ahead of me.” View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images When the Brewers activated newly-acquired Lance McCullers Jr. from the injured list on Friday afternoon, they optioned left-handed reliever Jared Koenig to Triple-A Nashville. It was not a surprising corresponding move, as Koenig allowed five runs (including two walks and a hit-by-pitch) without recording an out in Pittsburgh on Sunday. But it's the latest frustrating chapter in the 2026 season for the veteran southpaw, who was Pat Murphy's Swiss Army knife in each of the last two seasons. His velocity dropped in spring training, and while he avoided surgery for a left UCL sprain, he's pitched to a 4.82 xERA and 6.38 FIP when healthy. "He's been right in the thick of it, maybe underrated, so much in the thick of it," Murphy said. "And to see him go out there and try to compete without his best stuff, he just can't get on track. And the injury in spring, the rehab and the coming back, it just isn't on track." Koenig returned from the injured list at the end of June, and while his stuff and command were inconsistent throughout his rehab assignment, the initial returns after his activation were promising. In his first outing back, his sinker averaged 95.2 MPH and touched 97 in a scoreless inning. The wheels quickly fell off, though, as he allowed seven earned runs and issued six free bases in 4 ⅔ innings after that. "There was a pitch here or there, you're like, 'Wow,'" Murphy said. "But you look at the properties of the pitches, and it's not the same guy." Koenig's overall movement profile hasn't changed dramatically, but it seems like he isn't finishing his pitches as he once did. There's the obvious velocity drop of his sinker (down from 95.8 MPH last year to 94.2 this season). Furthermore, his secondary pitches are moving similarly, but not quite the same way. His cutter is backing up, with slight arm-side run; his changeup has less fade; and his curveball has less depth. Put all of that together, and stuff modeling metrics believe his arsenal is noticeably worse right now. He clearly wasn't trusting his stuff in the same way, either. At his best, Koenig succeeded by aggressively attacking the strike zone with his deceptive sinker, which looked out of his hand like it would cut to the glove side before running back over the plate. Not only has his control vanished since he came back, but he's thrown significantly more changeups to right-handers and cutters to lefties, instead of trusting his sinker. "Now he's [in a] 3-1 [count], now he's nitpicking, now he's pitching like he never has," Murphy said. "He knows he's not helping us, and all that hurts." Murphy said Koenig already knew the move was coming, as he and the Brewers spent recent days developing a plan to get him back to form. Although he was optioned to Nashville, he'll first head to the club's spring training complex in Arizona, where he can focus exclusively on improving his delivery to rediscover his velocity and pitch shapes. That's easier to do in a more controlled environment than at the big-league level. "He didn't feel like he could get the work in between either, because he had to be available, right? So it's hard to be available and get your work in between," Murphy said. "So hopefully we can set up something where he gets his work, gets his delivery locked down, the properties of his pitches start to increase with a little more rest in between." Koenig's status underscores Milwaukee's need for more pitching help ahead of the August 3 trade deadline. Middle relievers often have short shelf lives, so even if his stuff is not far off from usual, the Brewers are best advised not to expect him to bounce back. Without Koenig, Aaron Ashby is their lone active left-handed reliever, although DL Hall is nearing a rehab assignment. The front office could directly fortify that group by trading for a reliever or two, or it could add another starter to bump Shane Drohan or Robert Gasser to the bullpen. Even after acquiring McCullers and Colton Gordon, they should still be scouring both markets in the coming weeks. Koenig has been a trusted and well-liked piece of their bullpen for longer than many middle relievers last, but at this point, anything he can give them down the stretch is gravy. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images Lance McCullers Jr. probably won't become one of the Brewers’ best starters in the second half. The Astros wanted to dump most of his salary for a reason. McCullers is four years removed from performing like a viable big-league starter, and he’s currently working his way back from a shoulder injury. The Brewers have taken fliers on several injured pitchers in recent years, such as Trevor Rosenthal, Nestor Cortes, and Shelby Miller, and the returns have been next to nothing. There’s certainly room for the veteran to make an impact, though. Back-end starting pitching is a need for the Brewers, who recently lost Brandon Woodruff until at least September and just placed Kyle Harrison on the injured list with forearm tightness. The club seems to believe that the current version of McCullers, while diminished from his prime, can start games down the stretch with competitive enough results. In the late 2010s, when spinning the ball became all the rage in pitch design and usage, McCullers was among the poster children. From his debut in 2015 through 2022, he posted a 3.48 ERA, 3.35 FIP, and 3.73 SIERA while throwing high-spin breaking pitches 45.8% of the time, more than any other pitch group. His signature pitch was his knuckle curveball, which he famously threw for 24 straight pitches to close out Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS. Injuries began to strike near the end of that run. McCullers underwent Tommy John surgery after the 2018 season but remained productive after rehabbing. He then suffered a flexor strain during the 2021 postseason, and while he returned to make eight starts in 2022, he ultimately required surgery that sidelined him for the next two seasons. He hasn’t been the same since returning. In 94 ⅔ innings over the last two seasons, a sample interrupted by four more trips to the injured list, McCullers has pitched to a 6.65 ERA, 5.48 FIP, and 4.73 SIERA. Never a great control pitcher because of his big breaking ball, he's seen his walk rate balloon to 13.7% during that stretch. Hitters are seeing different stuff from this version of McCullers. His sinker used to sit around 94 MPH, but this year it’s averaged 91.3. He’s no longer a spin-first pitcher, either. After dabbling with a cutter for a few seasons, McCullers has made it one of his primary pitches for the first time this year. He’s now throwing fastballs 54% of the time, tied with his rookie campaign for the highest usage of his career. That change suggests McCullers is feeling things out without much success. That also applies to his mechanics. Overall, he seems to be searching for what kind of pitcher he should be at this stage of his career, and he hasn’t yet found a clear answer. After that original flexor injury, McCullers did not make his 2022 debut until August. He returned with a lower arm slot, a change that stuck through his two-year absence after surgery. This year, his slot was back to where it was before the injury, but it has dropped again during his rehab outings in Triple-A this month, which isn’t reflected on the chart below. McCullers has typically worked from the first-base side of the rubber, where his crossfire delivery can be most on-line to home plate, and the arm-side run of his sinker plays up best. But in one outing last July, he relocated to the middle of the rubber. After that, he switched back. With an in-season acquisition, the Brewers don’t have time to make wholesale changes, but helping McCullers establish an identity on the mound must be the starting point. Can he be a spin-heavy guy again, or is the fastball-centric approach the new way forward? Should he attack the strike zone aggressively or work the corners? How does his body move best after myriad injuries? On the arsenal front, there’s still plenty to like about his curveball, which has induced a 48.1% whiff rate and a .291 xwOBA. However, McCullers has lost his feel for locating it competitively, throwing nearly a quarter of his curveballs in what Statcast defines as the waste zone. Those are pitches so far outside the strike zone that they rarely force a hitter to swing, which makes a nasty pitch far less useful. The Brewers could try to make the curveball the centerpiece of McCullers’s arsenal again, but given their usual approach and where McCullers is right now, they’re more likely to emphasize his fastballs. Pitching coaches Chris Hook and Jim Henderson want starters to get early swings that miss barrels, which usually means sequencing sinkers, cutters, and four-seamers within the strike zone. McCullers now has that three-fastball mix, and his sinker and cutter are the only two pitches in his arsenal without a negative run value this season. Throwing the latter more often might be the key to reducing his walks while playing the east-west game to both sides of the plate. Pitch models grade his cutter as the best among his fastballs, and it has posted a +1 run value and 20% whiff rate this year. However, while McCullers has used the pitch as his leading fastball against left-handed batters, he’s thrown it more sparingly against right-handers. For comparison, Brandon Sproat, who has very similar pitch shapes from nearly the same arm slot, has used his cutter at nearly equal rates against both sides. McCullers clearly is not what he once was, but he might also have more potential for a decent second act than those numbers suggest. His 4.55 xERA, calculated by Statcast based on what usually happens on the kind of contact a pitcher allows, is passable. According to Baseball Prospectus, his 4.43 DRA is slightly better than the league average. McCullers has still generated whiffs on 27.3% of swings and posted a 44.8% ground ball rate, both of which are above average. The plan to be serviceable again will be somewhat tailored to McCullers as an individual, but expect the Brewers to turn to some familiar tricks. He’ll probably stay on the first-base side of the rubber. There might be small changes to his starting position and tempo to help get his arm on time and his torso more direct to the plate at foot strike. Attacking the zone with sinkers and cutters will probably be the playbook in most outings, with the expectation that an athletic defense will help him out on balls in play. It’s best to keep expectations measured. McCullers is a struggling rental pitcher, and he may not even be the main get of this deal for the Brewers. Left-hander Colton Gordon comes with five years of team control and might be more impactful when all is said and done. That said, few clubs are better than Milwaukee at turning struggling starters into serviceable arms for a brief stretch, including starters with underwhelming fastballs like McCullers. Perhaps he’ll follow in the footsteps of Colin Rea, Bryse Wilson, and Aaron Civale, among others. View full article

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Sit in on just a few Pat Murphy media sessions, and you'll learn that the Brewers manager regularly goes off on tangents. Many of those asides have nothing to do with baseball, but sometimes, when Murphy is dissatisfied with the pregame questions he's received from the press, he'll keep the baseball talk going himself. That's what he did one day in April, in response to a question about Joey Ortiz's recent at-bats. "I'll let you in on this," Murphy said to the writers and broadcasters assembled in his office, gesturing to one of the many papers strewn across his desk. When he assesses the Brewers' at-bats during his postgame interview, Murphy often consults that sheet of paper, which, at first glance, appears to be a traditional scorecard. It's more than that, though. The card, Murphy explained, is filled with shorthand symbols. It's his method of evaluating at-bats in real time. "I make notations on the type of at-bat it is," he said. "If it's a dot, that means solid at-bat. If it's a plus, that means really good. If it's a minus, that means ******. If it's an equal sign, that means, 'Meh.'" Box scores date back to the beginning of professional baseball, but today's players, coaches, and analysts have more information than ever to quantify process, not just outcomes. Rather than chasing results, hitters are better off focusing on actions they can control—swinging at the right pitches and making the right kind of contact—that produce good results more often than not. That's what Murphy is doing. In essence, his notations are his simplified version of a live Statcast feed. He's tracking the process, not just the results. At times, there's extra nuance due to the game situation or other less tangible factors. "If it's an 11-pitch strikeout, I might give them an equal sign. Good battle," Murphy said. "But the key is to not have too many minuses. That's what gets guys in trouble, the minus, minus, minus. Poor at-bats, at-bats that hurt us." A hitter's Statcast overview on their Baseball Savant page includes several metrics evaluating how well they impact the ball. There's hard-hit rate, which is based solely on exit velocity. Sweet spot rate focuses more on launch angle, reporting how many batted balls are hit at the best trajectories for line drives and fly balls to the outfield gaps. It won't give a hitter credit for hard-hit ground balls or pop-ups. Murphy doesn't read Baseball Savant pages. He'll say that his eyes can see what the technology tracks. There's a good chance he doesn't know that sweet spot rate is a stat, but he tracks a crude version of it on his card. "Hard contacts are usually a plus," Murphy said. "If it's straight down or straight up, I can't give you a plus. I can give you a dot, not a plus." He even tracks his own version of what Statcast defines as a barrel: a ball hit at least 98 mph within a certain launch angle range (in other words, a very hard-hit ball in the air). It's not the same term, nor exactly the same criteria, but it's the same concept. "If you get one good and it goes on that perfect trajectory… I'll give you a plus with a circle," Murphy said. As with most information gleaned from the eye test, it's not nearly as accurate as numbers tracked by state-of-the-art technology. It's probably safe to say the Brewers don't build their models to include direct input from Murphy's scorecards. "It's not scientific," Murphy said with a laugh. "It's really for me to remember without putting the actual scoring down there." There's still a benefit to it, though, and it reinforces how a manager with an old-school background continues working productively with an analytical front office. Even if Murphy's evaluation method is less scientific, he and the ivory tower often value the same skills and the same approach to the game. He just needs that information to be tracked and packaged in a language that makes sense to his baseball mind. View full article

At first glance, it doesn’t look like much has changed for Grant Anderson. After emerging as a versatile and durable middle reliever in his first season with the Brewers last year, the right-hander has resumed that role in 2026 with the same results. From a process standpoint, however, Anderson has not been quite the same guy. He’s issued slightly more walks, and his strikeout rate has dropped by five percentage points. As a result, most ERA estimators believe he’s pitched a bit worse than last year, and it looks as though an abnormally low batting average on balls in play is helping him maintain that shiny ERA. Season K-BB% BABIP ERA xERA FIP DRA- 2025 15.1% .274 3.23 3.72 3.84 91 2026 8.9% .221 3.32 3.30 4.44 108 Aside from those increased walks, it’s not really fair to say that Anderson has pitched worse this season. The real takeaway is that his stuff is playing differently, particularly his signature four-seam fastball. When Anderson arrived in Milwaukee, he and the Brewers originally leaned into a sinker-sweeper approach and worked in a few elevated four-seamers to left-handed hitters. Over time, that four-seamer took over as Anderson’s primary fastball, becoming just as integral to his breakout as his new sweeper. The key was his low arm slot, which made it look like the ball was rising as it entered the top of the zone. Despite its pedestrian velocity, opponents whiffed on nearly 40% of swings against Anderson’s four-seamer because it was so challenging to get the bat on top of it. This year, his slot has increased ever so slightly, creating a ripple effect on how that fastball plays. Season Arm Angle IVB VAA Whiff% Under% LA wOBAcon 2025 8° 12.2 -3.51 39% 68% 28° .383 2026 12° 12.6 -3.87 23% 48% 35° .340 The change is most reflected in the vertical approach angle of Anderson’s fastball, which measures the steepness at which the pitch crosses home plate. Last year, it had the ninth-lowest VAA among qualified four-seamers, meaning it entered the zone at one of the flattest angles in baseball, prompting so many swings underneath the ball. This year, its VAA ranks 19th. That’s still elite, but in a game of inches, it reduces how far underneath those swings are. Fewer swings from opposing hitters have been underneath Anderson’s four-seamer this year, which is a big reason why it’s gotten significantly fewer whiffs. However, the average launch angle against it has increased. That means many of those swings and misses have instead become high fly balls and pop-ups, which are still nearly automatic outs. It’s a slightly different way of getting to the same result. The small change to his arm slot has effectively transformed Anderson from a swing-and-miss pitcher to a pop-up king. His whiff rate has dropped from an excellent 30.9% last year to a below-average 24.1% this year, but his 13.8% pop-up rate ranks ninth among qualified pitchers, according to Statcast. Pitchers who allow such high fly balls usually have a lower BABIP, so Anderson is not necessarily getting lucky that more of them are finding gloves. It’s why xERA – a Statcast-based metric that looks at how often batted balls of each exit velocity and launch angle combination go for hits – believes he has actually been better, even as most of his peripheral stats have taken a step backward. Hitters are making more contact, but in ways that typically lead to fewer hits. Ideally, Anderson will rediscover that lower release, allowing him to be a more balanced pitcher who can get swings and misses when he needs them. But outs are outs, and he still has a reliable way to get them. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images Despite being one of the best offensive catchers in baseball for most of the current decade, William Contreras has not fully tapped into his talent at the plate. Contreras has flashed prodigious power over the years, hitting baseballs at elite exit velocities. Even while playing with a broken finger last season, he still posted an excellent 90th-percentile exit velocity of 107.4 mph. The issue has been Contreras hitting more than half of his contact on the ground in most seasons, running one of baseball’s highest ground-ball rates. If he could find a way to launch those hard-hit balls in the air, he could also become one of the game’s best power hitters. That change to his flight plan has technically happened this year. Contreras’s ground-ball rate has fallen to a career-low 43.5% in 2026. For the first time since a cup of coffee with Atlanta in 2021, his 17.2% pull air rate slightly exceeds the league average. And yet, Contreras is hitting for less power than he ever has as a full-time player, managing just a .118 isolated power and a modest .406 slugging average. His 107 wRC+ is the lowest of his Brewers career. There’s a bit of misfortune here, as Contreras’s .340 xwOBA suggests he should have notched a few more extra-base hits. More importantly, though, his seemingly improved pull air rate is misleading. Not every batted ball pulled in the air is equally productive. Contreras’s overall hard-hit rate is down to 43.5% this season. That’s still slightly above the league average, but it’s the worst mark of his career. When he is hitting the ball at power trajectories—a high enough angle for a fly ball to travel into a gap or over the fence—he’s often hitting it around 90 mph, which typically makes for a routine flyout. Contreras’s xwOBA on contact this year is .360, an improvement over last season, but still lower than his best years in 2023 and 2024. Back in May, Matt Trueblood covered how this year’s changes to Contreras’s stance, stride, and swing path have pushed his contact point further out in front without an increase in power. Now, we’ve seen how those shifts have played out in the first half. Contreras is still making great contact against fastballs, slugging .475 against them with a .499 xSLG. According to Statcast’s swing timing data, his bat is more lined up on hard stuff than ever before. However, by forcing his contact point further in front, he’s been unable to wait back as consistently on breaking and offspeed pitches. With that slightly flatter bat path, Contreras doesn't roll over the ball as often when he’s early. He’s meeting soft stuff in a better spot vertically, but many of those early swings are producing harmless pop-ups. Last season, Contreras slugged .367 against breaking pitches and .403 against offspeed pitches, hitting a combined eight of his 16 home runs against them. This year, he’s slugging .258 and .361, respectively, with just one homer. He's already popped out 15 times against non-fastballs this year. On 10 of them, he was well out in front, making contact at least 32 inches in front of his body. For the fourth straight season, the Brewers have one of baseball’s lowest pull air rates as an offense. They’re not against pulling the ball in the air, but they want their hitters to get there in what they deem the right way, while still having a balanced approach. Contreras seems to have strayed from that a bit, and the ironic result has been less damage for a hitter who has long carried the potential to be even more than he already is, despite hitting balls in the general direction and on the general trajectory people have always cried out for. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images When Blake Perkins stepped into the left-handed batter’s box to face Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Taylor Clarke on Friday night, it was his first plate appearance from the left side in nearly a month. The switch-hitting Perkins last hit left-handed in Las Vegas on June 8, and like his at-bat in Arizona, it only happened because the game went to extra innings after he entered as a pinch-runner. Since May 16, he has taken just six plate appearances as a left-handed hitter. A natural right-handed hitter, Perkins has typically fared best from that side, making more contact and hitting for more power. As a lefty, he’s never truly been close to an average hitter, but that matchup flexibility added enough value to his glove-first profile to make him a solid big-leaguer. That hasn’t been true this year, as his very limited production from the left side has bottomed out. He has just two left-handed hits, one of which was a bunt single. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Season wOBA (LHB) xwOBA (LHB) K% (LHB) wOBA (RHB) xwOBA (RHB) K% (RHB) 2023 .313 .254 30.3% .302 .286 15.2% 2024 .280 .276 30.4% .299 .303 16.4% 2025 .256 .265 29.3% .286 .326 22.0% 2026 .136 .204 30.0% .352 .309 23.6% Perkins continues to swing from both sides, but in reality, he does not function as a switch-hitter on the 2026 Brewers. That raises the question of whether he should hit exclusively right-handed moving forward, a transition he considered a few times earlier in his career. There are numerous fairly recent examples of hitters giving up switch-hitting during their big-league careers. Perkins wouldn’t be the first Brewer to do it within the last two seasons. In Triple-A last year, the club encouraged Anthony Seigler to focus solely on hitting from his best side before his eventual debut. However, many of those players, including Seigler, stopped hitting right-handed to focus solely on their left-handed swing. That’s usually a worthwhile tradeoff, as left-handed hitters have the platoon advantage the majority of the time, particularly against starting pitchers. In every season of the pitch-tracking era (since 2008), right-handed pitchers have thrown more than 70% of all pitches. For Perkins, it might make some sense in the short term to focus solely on being an average right-handed hitter against lefties, but he’s more likely to prolong his opportunities beyond this season by becoming passable again from both sides. His offense will probably never be good enough to make him a full-time player, but he’ll have a much better chance of getting starts in center field with a future team if he can hit left-handed. That may still be a possibility, as his left-handed swing does not look irretrievably broken. According to Statcast, Perkins’s bat speed and swing path from the left side are nearly identical to his career averages. In a small sample this year, he’s gotten underneath or been jammed by too many fastballs, and he’s waved early at slower stuff. That’s left him hitting too many pop-ups and ground balls, a poor combination for any hitter. This version of Perkins only helps the Brewers in a limited role. He also owes most of those opportunities to injuries, as the club has been down a right-handed-hitting outfielder—first Jackson Chourio, then Brandon Lockridge—for most of the year. Once Lockridge and Luis Lara start factoring into the mix, Perkins could head back to Triple-A, where he’d have more opportunities to get right. Those opportunities won’t matter much for the Brewers, but they may still matter to Perkins, who will have to start thinking more broadly about his career prospects. With Lockridge still two seasons away from arbitration and Lara on a recently signed extension, Perkins's time as a productive fourth outfielder in Milwaukee is probably nearing its end. He's a beloved teammate and has defensive and baserunning value, though, so this stop need not be the last one on his tour of the major leagues. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images Nearly every pitcher will say that above all else, their objective on the mound is to compete. Each individual is wired differently, though. Some can maintain that competitive focus while thinking with precise detail about pitch sequencing and strategy. Some can diagnose and correct mechanical problems in the middle of the game. Others function best when they block out all of the noise and simply throw with conviction. Chad Patrick leans toward that approach. "As far as being on the mound, I try not to think about those things," Patrick said. "I think this game is based off of confidence, and it's a mental game. If I'm not out there thinking I'm good enough to be out there, then I shouldn't be out there." That mindset has shaped how Patrick's coaches present information to him and how they evaluate his performance. He needs space to do his thing. "Chad is a feel guy," pitching coach Chris Hook said in Cincinnati last week. "I think you could look into him every time, and he's a little bit different. I can't cage that. He flows. He wants to go." In a data-driven era of player development, pitching has become more of a science than ever. But in many ways, it's also still an art, and Patrick approaches it as such. Like a creator, his work is often driven by what he's feeling in that moment. That's why the brightest lights—the situations where the competitive juices flow the strongest—have often unleashed the best version of Patrick's stuff. "He's an artist," Hook said. "He's got a nice little paintbrush, but he's got to be in position to use it." Patrick's cutter has always been a unique pitch capable of special brushstrokes, and he should now have a better mastery of his canvas than he did early in the season. After a couple of tweaks since his move to the bullpen, his stuff is the best it's been all year. The Brewers want all of their pitchers to move quickly and repeatably. Patrick was doing neither early in the year as a starter, when he pitched out of the windup with the bases empty. As a reliever, Patrick has pitched exclusively out of the stretch, and he's moving more explosively, with a much quicker time to the plate. patrick mechanics.mp4 "He's ready to throw the baseball more often," Hook said. "I like him out of the stretch. I think it just takes the thinking out of it. I mean, we're seeing it all over baseball." "I think it does simplify a lot of different things, a lot of moving pieces," Patrick said. "Like, my windup's a little unconventional. It's a step forward, a rock back, my foot slides a little bit. So I kind of [have] to gather myself over the rubber better, whereas in the stretch I'm already in that position of being successful." By pitching in shorter stints and moving faster down the mound, Patrick has increased his velocity. His four-seamer and two-seamer averaged 94.2 MPH as a starter, but they've averaged 95.8 MPH since his last traditional start on May 4. Finding the best version of Patrick's cutter (or, more accurately, his two cutters) has been an ongoing process. He still manipulates it between a shorter version for back-door called strikes to left-handed hitters and a longer version to jam them or get swings and misses off the outside corner against righties. This spring, he temporarily switched to a four-seam cutter grip, and it often backed up, with slight arm-side movement rather than true cut. In late April, Patrick revived his normal cutter, a sweeper grip that has more velocity and carry than a breaking pitch due to how his long fingers spin the ball. That restored some of the glove-side movement, but the rest of it returned more consistently after a mechanical tweak. Patrick didn't just need space mentally. He literally needed more physical space between his head and his right hand in his delivery. "It's probably not a recommendation we talk about for guys, to say, 'Let's keep your head away from your hand,'" said pitching coordinator Jim Henderson. "He's just kind of a unique cat with that." Patrick throws his best cutters when his hand can drive through the pitch along the outside of the baseball and spin it on the proper axis. Creating space between his head and his hand lowers his arm slot slightly, putting him in the best position to execute his cutter. He was in that spot late last year, but this spring, his hand was getting stuck in that higher slot. Because he wasn't releasing the ball on time at foot strike (the moment a pitcher's front foot hits the ground), Patrick was yanking too many cutters and throwing them with too much backspin. "Sweeper guys have to kind of have some freedom," Henderson said. "He can't be tight with a curveball kind of arm angle or arm slot. You kind of have to have some freedom with it. When he gets [his arm] a little bit closer to his head on his cutter, we just notice that there's not as great movement." With the adjustment, Patrick's stride has become slightly more cross-fire toward home plate, and his arm angle has kept dropping. His slot is now comparable to last September, when he began a dominant stretch of relief pitching that extended into the postseason. To confirm that Patrick is working through the ball properly, the Brewers monitor his horizontal release point. When he throws his cutter, Hook wants to see him release the ball about 1.5 feet from the center of the rubber toward the third-base side. Since May 22, Patrick's average cutter release point is -1.4 feet. Before that, it was -1.2 feet. "I think his release side got a little close to his head early on, and as part of it, there just was no hip-shoulder separation at all," Hook said. "It was just like he was a one-piece mover, and when you're one-piece, and you're kind of stuck, and you're close to your head, he just couldn't get his hand through the ball the way he wanted." Since May 22, most of Patrick's cutters have had true glove-side movement. The lower arm slot and synced-up mechanics have also turned his two-seamer into more of a true sinker, with less carry and more depth. "Two-seams, you have to drive through this ball," Henderson said. "If you leak front side early, or you lose your lower half, you're not gonna be able to hold onto this. You'll just be on the side of the ball, and it would be more [running, not sinking]. So just to be able to get a little bit more on top of the baseball and making sure the front side is strong is going to give you a better sinker, in my opinion." Better velocity and better movement sound nice on paper, but Patrick has found himself weathering storms throughout the last three weeks. Since June 10, he's pitched to a 9.95 ERA, 7.07 xERA, and 7.45 FIP. Free bases and home runs have been the problems, as Patrick has issued six walks and allowed five home runs while facing 60 batters during that time. Patrick's stuff has continued to play well against right-handers. Most of the damage has come against lefties, who have pulverized his cutter. He must jam them with the pitch for it to miss barrels, and he's left more of them down the middle lately. In his manager's eyes, the tone of Patrick's art changed. "He's a great competitor, but he's also very critical of himself, and he's very emotional," Pat Murphy said. "He's very anxiety-ridden, and things easily bother him. We got to get him over that." Patrick may have turned a corner this week, logging scoreless multi-inning outings with no walks on consecutive nights. He felt he was moving too fast in some of his recent appearances and said he found a way to move quickly while still being in control of his body. That's not something he wants to think about on the mound, though. "It's not really physical," Patrick said. "It comes down to competing." As their bullpen searches for consistency behind Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, and Aaron Ashby, the Brewers need big innings from Patrick. He's been closer to figuring things out than it seemed for most of June. The artist just needs space to work. "I still consider him a young major leaguer," Hook said. "He's still figuring out what he needs to do. He's such a feel guy, so we're kind of always balancing all of those things." View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images In the bottom of the sixth inning on Monday night, with runners on first and second and the Brewers trailing 3-2, Pat Murphy pinch-hit David Hamilton for Cooper Pratt. The decision could be seen as securing the platoon advantage by batting the left-handed Hamilton against the right-handed Chase Petty, but the changeup specialist has pronounced reverse splits in his limited big-league innings. He’s also been generally unsuccessful against big-league hitters overall during that time. In reality, it was a big spot, and a struggling Pratt was not a great fit for the moment. He was an on-base machine during his first two series in the majors, but he has since gone 1-for-19. In his last three games, Pratt is hitless with four strikeouts and zero walks. On Sunday and Monday, to put it bluntly, he looked like a mess. He chased a handful of high fastballs, several of them well above the strike zone: Murphy said the buildup of those poor swings contributed to the substitution, and his last at-bat on Monday triggered the move. His first time up, Pratt chased a 2-1 changeup just below the zone, prompting him to swing through a borderline two-strike fastball at the top of the zone for a strikeout. In that second at-bat, he lofted a changeup straddling the outside corner for a routine flyout. “I made the decision early in the game,” Murphy said. “I was going to pinch-hit for him when I saw his second at-bat.” Pratt’s chase rate was too high throughout the minor leagues, and improving his swing decisions is near the top of his development checklist. Before his last two games, he had contained his chase rate enough to match the league average. For the most part, he did what the Brewers asked him to do: swing at strikes, let the ball get deep, and use the opposite field to maximize his on-base potential. That’s changed during this lull. “He’s trying to do too much. He’s trying to take another step, instead of just do what you were doing,” Murphy said. “Not just the success. The pitch selection was very, very good. He took his walks. He had a better flight plan. He wasn’t punching out. He’s gotten away from it a little bit the last couple series.” After hitting 40% of his batted balls to the opposite field over his first nine games, Pratt has hit none that way in his last four games. His swing has been slightly longer and faster in that very brief sample, a sign that he’s unloading on more swings and trying to force damage. That kind of offense has not yet been developed in his 21-year-old body. Murphy took action beyond Monday night, also withholding Pratt from the starting lineup on Tuesday. It wasn’t a punishment, but rather a mental break to help Pratt slow things down before his struggles continued snowballing. “I called him in today and talked to him,” Murphy said. “It’s perspective.” He took a similar approach with Jackson Chourio early in his rookie season. The former top prospect struggled to a .207/.251/.323 line (60 wRC+) over his first 176 plate appearances. During that stretch, Murphy did not start him for three straight games in early May, then for two straight games near the end of the month. There’s a fine line between productive breaks and preventing a young player from getting going by limiting his reps, but things worked out fine for Chourio. He went on a tear in the second half as a rookie and has since remained a mainstay near the top of the lineup. Murphy thinks Pratt is already more mature than Chourio was at that time and won’t require as many resets. “I think he’ll get back on his game quicker,” he said. “I think he’s done great. His baserunning, his defense has been nearly impeccable.” Thirteen games into his career, Pratt is hitting just .211/.295/.237 with a 55 wRC+, though his .320 xwOBA and 81 DRC+ indicate the quality of his plate appearances has been a bit better than his results. More than anything, the last few days are a reminder that Pratt will probably take some lumps at the plate for a bit. His defense and baseball instincts made him big league-ready, but the bat could take a few years to come around. “I was just really sincere with him about it and reinforced with him how much we believed in him and how proud I am of the way he transitioned when he first got here,” Murphy said. “A lot of guys don’t do that.” View full article

Image courtesy of © Dale Zanine-Imagn Images Let's get this out of the way first: the Brewers have not permanently forgotten how to hit with runners in scoring position. During the course of a 162-game regular season, teams go through ebbs and flows, especially on offense. The Brewers still have an .800 OPS with runners in scoring position this year, the third-highest in baseball. Last year, they ranked ninth. The year before, they ranked second. Before last Monday, the Brewers still had an .842 OPS with runners in scoring position in June. It's been one bad week. They'll bounce back sooner than later. "We're just going through a rough stretch of it," Christian Yelich said. "We've been really good at it at times. Right now, we're in one of those times where we're really bad at it, but we'll come through on the other side of it, and I think we'll start getting back to normal." It truly has been an abysmal week, though. Since the start of their series in Cincinnati, Milwaukee hitters have slashed .118/.216/.230 with runners in scoring position. The Brewers managed to go 4-2 during that stretch, but the lack of timely hits proved costly on Sunday, when they dropped a 4-3 contest to lose a three-game series to the Chicago Cubs. Performance with runners in scoring position is a particularly fickle stat, especially in such a small sample. However, the quality of the Brewers' at-bats in run-scoring situations has been much worse lately. As their lack of production has continued, they're getting jumpy in the box. "Sometimes guys maybe try to do too much, and that's where we try to preach you've got to take what the game gives you," offense and strategy coordinator Jason Lane said postgame on Sunday. "And that might be taking pitches and handing it to the next guy. But there weren't too many mistakes in those situations, from what I saw. Just, we offered at some pitches on the edges that got a couple ground balls, a pop-up, and a strikeout in those situations." The numbers bear out what Lane is saying. During this stretch, the Brewers have chased significantly more pitches outside the strike zone with runners in scoring position. RISP Split Avg LA Under% K% Z-Swing% Z-Contact% O-Swing% O-Contact% Thru 6/21 7° 20.3% 21.3% 65.9% 85.5% 29.3% 59.0% Since 6/22 13° 33.3% 31.7% 64.1% 72.0% 34.8% 50.0% That's not the full story, though. The Brewers have also whiffed at an alarming number of in-zone pitches, and they're making more contact underneath the ball. It goes without saying that striking out and hitting pop-ups with runners in scoring position is a poor recipe for success. It's not worth looking further into those chases. Pitches outside the zone are much harder to reach, so those swings will never be lined up with the ball particularly well. Swinging at those pitches in the first place is the problem, not the quality of swings at those pitches. Instead, the question is what the Brewers are doing differently on more hittable pitches. Once again, the answer is that they're too jumpy. According to Statcast, on pitches in the heart of the strike zone, they've been more on time, but for the wrong reason. The Brewers want many of their hitters to let the ball get deep, so the fact that they're late less often means they're cheating to pitches in attempts to force damage. As a result, they're pulling off the ball and flailing at more pitches, running out of bat to make contact. Split Late% (Fastballs) Late% (Breaking) Late% (Offspeed) Flail% (Fastballs) Flail% (Breaking) Flail% (Offspeed) Thru 6/21 24% 10% 6% 10% 13% 22% Since 6/22 19% 4% 0% 15% 17% 33% In other words, the hitters are feeling pressure to deliver. They're trying too hard to make something happen, and it's leading to more chases and whiffs. "Trying harder and wanting it more isn't going to make it happen," Yelich said. "Obviously, you want to get the job done. Everybody wants to get the job done. There's no right answer for how to do that. It's just, oftentimes, you've got to slow that down and try to focus." Look no further than a few key at-bats on Sunday. With runners on first and third and one out in the third inning, Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang stranded them with back-to-back strikeouts. Chourio chased a high fastball for strike three, while Turang expanded the zone on a pair of fastballs during the middle of his at-bat. In the fourth, after Andrew Vaughn's leadoff triple, Jake Bauers rolled over a 2-1 changeup on the outside corner, and Gary Sánchez popped up an up-and-in curveball. Sal Frelick hit a 100-mph groundout, but it was already too late; no more productive outs were available. With runners on first and second in the ninth, Cooper Pratt and Joey Ortiz chased several high fastballs to abruptly extinguish a potential walk-off rally. The Cubs would score three runs against Joel Kuhnel in the top of the 10th, and the Brewers fell short of a comeback in the bottom half of the inning. That was too many brutal at-bats in one game, the latest entries in what has become an unfortunate recent trend for the offense. "You feel like you kind of left one out there today, but it is what it is," Yelich said. "Part of the season, and you've just got to keep grinding through it." Given the Brewers' track record, it's safe to assume they will round back into form. That must happen sooner rather than later, though. For this particular lineup, which lacks the tremendous in-game power to sell out for damage on too many pitches, less is often more. "Maybe we could have waited for a better pitch, but that's the battle of driving in runs," Lane said. "It's the hardest thing to do at the plate sometimes, and it's where your discipline has to show up, and we didn't do a great job of that today." View full article

After he dominated the minor leagues and reached the majors in his second full professional season last year, Craig Yoho's career has not followed the path he or the Brewers hoped for. In 13 career appearances, most of them low-leverage outings, the 26-year-old has pitched to a 6.75 ERA and 5.22 SIERA. It was not long ago that Pat Murphy spoke highly of Yoho after a dominant spring training showing in 2025. Within a few months, he became an afterthought on the 40-man roster. After a few rough outings last year, it became clear that the Brewers struggled to trust Yoho in pivotal situations. This season, they've rarely trusted him enough to roster him at all. Control issues have been the primary culprit, in part because Yoho's stuff moves so much. In Triple-A this year, his signature screwball-like changeup has averaged 2.2 inches of induced vertical drop and 17.8 inches of arm-side run. Even his fastball has averaged 16.6 inches of horizontal movement. In his big-league career, he's walked 17.9% of batters faced. Back in the big leagues by necessity for most of June, Yoho showed signs of progress this month amid his longest stint to date. In his first four outings, he was throwing enough strikes and missing barrels, posting a 1.73 xERA and 2.54 SIERA. According to Statcast, he induced whiffs on 36.6% of swings, and his average exit velocity allowed on balls in play was 83.5 mph. His walk rate was still 10%, but that will always be part of the picture for a reliever with so much movement. In each of his last two outings, Yoho threw more than half of his pitches in the strike zone. On Monday in Cincinnati, Murphy said that performance played a role in the decision to option left-handed reliever Drew Rom, not Yoho, to make room for Brandon Woodruff's return. Given that solid work and the recent unsteadiness throughout Milwaukee's 'B' bullpen, one could argue Yoho had earned another shot at higher leverage work. He got that opportunity on Wednesday night, as Trevor Megill, Aaron Ashby, and a suspended Abner Uribe were unavailable. Yoho inherited a bases-loaded jam from Grant Anderson in the seventh inning, with JJ Bleday representing the tying run in a 6-2 game. With one pitch, a changeup in the zone, he induced an early swing from Bleday for a soft inning-ending groundout to first base. Yoho had answered the call in a big spot. Things went haywire when he returned for the eighth. Edwin Arroyo waited back on an elevated changeup, dunking it to right field for a leadoff single. Elly De La Cruz worked him for a nine-pitch walk. Yoho nearly escaped with just one run allowed after coaxing routine groundouts from Dane Myers and Sal Stewart, but Spencer Steer blasted an 0-1 fastball over the heart of the plate for a three-run home run. With the score now 6-5, Yoho's night – and his latest big-league stint – was over. The Brewers optioned him to Triple-A the following day. As Yoho was being informed in the Cincinnati clubhouse that his next travel would be to Nashville instead of Milwaukee, Murphy gave a blunt postgame assessment of his outing, reiterating the shortcomings that have kept the Brewers from trusting him as an MLB-caliber reliever. "They don't know him yet, they haven't faced him yet," Murphy said of Yoho's first inning. "Now he goes out the second inning, they're expecting it. It's a two-pitch guy, really, and he doesn't throw strikes. You can't do that ... You can see he wasn't comfortable in that situation." There were signs on Wednesday that some hitters could easily formulate a productive approach against Yoho. Arroyo waited back on his changeup. De La Cruz appeared intent on waiting him out and forcing him back into the strike zone; he watched five of those nine pitches, including two just outside the strike zone and a 3-1 changeup down the middle. "They know the deal," Murphy said. "I mean, the report's out there. Fastball command, question mark. Changeup, very slow, sit on it, not a swing-and-miss [pitch]. So he's got to make some adjustments with it, and I think he will. He's a great kid." Most of the Brewers' concerns are valid. Yoho's movement is not only difficult to control, but it also makes pitch sequencing more challenging. His changeup is more than 15 mph slower than his fastball, and its extreme depth means he can't tunnel any pitches within – or even near – the strike zone. Assume that to get a chase on a changeup just below the zone, Yoho must make it look like his fastball out of the hand. The visual below from FanGraphs shows that, based on how his pitches move, he would have to throw that fastball well above the zone for the two pitches to start at the same sight line. In other words, his stuff moves so much that he can't use an in-zone pitch to set up a chase on an out-of-zone pitch, or vice-versa. Murphy made a questionable assertion that Yoho is purely a two-pitch pitcher, as he also features a curveball and cutter. However, the curveball is a more extreme inverse of his changeup in all the wrong ways: averaging 75.9 mph with 10 inches of induced vertical drop and 20 inches of glove-side break in Triple-A, it's challenging for Yoho to land in the zone and is effectively impossible to tunnel. To even get that breaking ball to fit on a similar tunneling graphic from last year, you'd have to position his fastball at a right-handed batter's helmet. A pitcher with Yoho's stuff will never defeat hitters with pitch tunneling and deception, though. Instead, it will work because the extreme movement will miss barrels, even if it's not particularly deceptive. That's where the Brewers may be selling him short. So far, Yoho's changeup has excelled at avoiding loud contact, even though hitters have likely known it's coming and it has not always been located competitively. In his limited big-league work across two seasons, opponents have managed just a .247 xwOBA, 17.6% hard-hit rate, and 5.9% barrel rate against it with a 33.8% whiff rate. On Wednesday night, it induced two chases and two soft ground balls. The Reds did not whiff on it, but Murphy's claim that it isn't a swing-and-miss pitch is, frankly, incorrect. Such a pitch does not need to be disguised as a fastball to be effective. Yoho just needs to throw it in and around the zone below the belt. When hitters start timing it up, a timely in-zone fastball can produce a take or a late swing. So far, he has done neither consistently. Yoho is partially responsible for his current situation because he sprayed the ball too much in his early chances last summer. At the same time, it's becoming clear that a poor fit between player and team is also part of the issue. Whenever Chris Hook talks about a particular pitch, he instinctively states whether it "tracks" in the strike zone like it's a checklist item. To the Brewers, many big shapes pose tunneling problems and do not maximize in-zone swings, so they often find throwing more fastball variants and shorter sliders to be more useful than better "stuff" pitches. There are some exceptions, like Grant Anderson's sweeper, but Yoho's stuff is well beyond the mold. Perhaps the Brewers are right about him, or perhaps it's simply a poor fit. At this point, a change of scenery looks like the best way to find out. The club has a history of trading former prospects who have been leapfrogged on the 40-man roster for moderate upgrades at the trade deadline. In 2018, they flipped Brett Phillips in a two-player package for Mike Moustakas. In 2019, it was Mauricio Dubon for Drew Pomeranz. More recently, they traded Joey Wiemer for Frankie Montas in 2024. With the deadline five weeks away, Yoho could be next. A fresh start – and, just as importantly, a setting where he'll get a longer leash to become as competitive as possible with his arsenal – may be exactly what he needs. The Brewers, meanwhile, could fill his roster spot with a more consistent contributor. View full article