Jack Stern

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Caleb Durbin’s long-term future with the Brewers was likely to be a supporting role, rather than a multi-year residency as the starting third baseman. While his 105 wRC+ and 2.6 fWAR as a rookie demonstrated his high floor, Durbin was unlikely to improve upon that production. His hard-hit rate, barrel rate, and expected wOBA on contact were all in the bottom 4 percent of big-league hitters. As a short player without much power, he has already maxed out his abilities. Given that low ceiling, Durbin was likely to become replaceable sooner, rather than later. Surprisingly, the Brewers feel they can replace him now. On Monday, they dealt him to the Boston Red Sox (with Andruw Monasterio, Anthony Seigler, and their competitive balance round B pick in the 2026 Draft) for left-handers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan and infielder David Hamilton. With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training this week, the deal leaves the roster in an odd place. The Brewers now have even more bodies in what was already a crowded rotation picture, and the three players who combined for 85% of last year’s innings at third base are gone. For that matter, Vinny Capra and Oliver Dunn are gone, too. They combined for just over 200 innings at the position last year. The rotation additions might seem redundant, but the Brewers don’t view them that way. Acquiring even more controllable starters remained enticing to them after they traded away Freddy Peralta last month. While Peralta’s 65 ERA- last year was seventh among qualified starters, replacing his volume will be the greater challenge. He started at least 30 games in each of his last three seasons in Milwaukee, including 33 in 2025. That kind of durability has become increasingly rare in modern baseball, where frequent arm injuries limit availability and starters work fewer innings even when healthy. The Brewers will need a collection of arms to backfill Peralta’s innings. “It’s no longer just the five-man rotation where every guy’s going to give you five innings anymore,” president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said on Monday morning. “It’s a combination of your entire staff.” The Brewers have seen firsthand how quickly injuries can chew through a depth chart. A slew of spring training ailments contributed to a pair of season-opening blowouts in New York and left Elvin Rodríguez starting their home opener. Excluding openers, Milwaukee used 14 different starting pitchers last season and 13 the year before. “We know we’re going to have injuries,” Arnold said. “You guys saw what we were dealing with at the start of last year, when not everybody’s 100%. That’s going to happen again, and we know that. But having a number of guys here, like Harrison and Drohan, really does raise the floor for us.” While there’s no such thing as having too much pitching, the Brewers are testing how much pitching is the best use of a team’s resources—and how many starters they can realistically develop in that role at once. Milwaukee’s 40-man roster currently contains as many as 15 potential starters, although Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and Ángel Zerpa could remain relievers after the additions of Harrison, Drohan, and Brandon Sproat. With another crop of prospects (Tate Kuehner, Brett Wichrowski, and K.C. Hunt) progressing to the upper minors, finding consistent starts for nearly 20 pitchers between the majors and Triple-A Nashville could get tricky. Meanwhile, the left side of the infield is unclear. After acquiring Jett Williams in the Peralta deal and Hamilton (Monasterio’s likely replacement) for Durbin, the Brewers have enough players to man the dirt, but only Joey Ortiz has experience at third base. Arnold also pointed toward infield prospects like Jesus Made, Cooper Pratt, and Andrew Fischer, each of whom is carving a rapid path toward the big leagues. “There’s just a lot of these types of guys coming in our system that we feel can absolutely handle the left side of the infield and have really high upside,” Arnold said. “And so we feel like we have the ingredients now to weather the loss of somebody like Caleb Durbin.” Still, as things currently stand, the Brewers will have to fill third base with an infielder who does not profile well at the position. They could use their rotation depth to trade for a more proven option, such as Houston Astros third baseman Isaac Paredes or Washington Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams. Ramón Urías, Enrique Hernández, and Jose Iglesias are among the lower-cost free agents still available. They could decide against further additions, though. Paredes would supply the power the Brewers need, but he lacks the speed, defense, and versatility they usually prioritize. Those veteran free agents are not clearly better than their internal options. Furthermore, reporting from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel suggests that the Brewers’ stated confidence in their current infield is genuine, not just posturing for trade talks. Arnold said the Brewers remain open to outside acquisitions, but if the current mix holds, they will use spring training to test different arrangements and determine the best one. “We’re not really married to any one particular permutation of the infield here,” he said. “I think there are a number of different ways we could sort this out.” One option is handing third base to Williams. At 5-foot-7 and with a suspect throwing arm, the 22-year-old profiles best at second base or in center field. Durbin is, notably, the same height and had the same defensive concerns as a prospect, but Matt Erickson successfully converted him to a capable third baseman last year. Arnold confirmed that Williams will receive reps at third this spring, along with shortstop, second base, and outfield. The Brewers are also open to trying Ortiz (who could slide back to third) and Brice Turang (a former shortstop) at other positions, based on how Williams or other players look defensively. “We want to put him in a position to succeed, because he hasn’t played third base yet,” Arnold said of Williams. “But he certainly has the ingredients to do so. So we’re going to give him some reps there, along with other guys as well.” The Brewers either have another move in the hopper that will tie their infield together, or they’re taking a pair of calculated gambles. There’s a world in which injuries make nearly 20 starters the right number to fill innings, while some combination of Ortiz, Williams, and Pratt provides solid production at shortstop and third base. There’s another in which the Brewers don’t have enough innings for their myriad arms, as the left side of their infield struggles. View full article

Image courtesy of © Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images With a plethora of young starters set to compete for rotation spots in spring training—most of them already on the 40-man roster—minor-league signee Gerson Garabito probably won’t be in the running for the Brewers’ Opening Day roster. Still, Garabito will be among the pitchers reporting to big-league camp in the coming days, where he’ll get an opportunity to make an impression for later in the season. Andruw Monasterio, Jared Koenig, Anthony Seigler, and Easton McGee are among the recent non-roster invitees to find their way to Milwaukee in the middle of a season after being further down the depth chart in spring. For a club that has gone through plenty of arms throughout the last few seasons, Garabito could be next. The 30-year-old Dominican made his debut in 2024 for the Texas Rangers, for whom he pitched to a 5.77 ERA and 4.96 FIP over 34 ⅓ innings across parts of two seasons. They released him last June to sign with the Samsung Lions of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), where he posted a 2.64 ERA and 3.94 FIP in 15 starts. Stuff models are not enamored with Garabito’s arsenal. He had a 92 Stuff+ and 0.1 StuffPro (where 0 is average and lower is better) in his eight big-league innings in 2025. However, he throws five pitches, with a few interesting shapes. Most notably, his sinker had 3.5 more inches of sink than expected from his three-quarters arm slot, while his four-seamer had an extra inch of carry. That heavy sinker figures to become the foundation of his pitch mix in the Brewers organization, which has been among the top five teams in sinker usage over the past two seasons. One of their greatest development successes last year was Quinn Priester, who throws a similar bowling-ball two-seamer. In fact, Garabito’s velocity, pitch shapes, and arm angle are eerily similar to Priester’s before his 2025 breakout. There are a few key differences between the two pitchers. Garabito’s four-seamer has more spin and carry than Priester’s did, and his curveball has more of a sweeping slider shape. That’s because Priester throws his curveball from a higher slot than the rest of his pitches to get more traditional 1-to-7 movement, but Garabito uses a lower slot to give his hook more lateral break. That means Garabito may not make all of the same changes as Priester, who refashioned his four-seamer into a cutter last year and threw his curveball less. His four-seamer has a better shape, and his slider has more backspin, leaving him with less room to switch to a cutter. Because his curveball plays more like a bigger slider, it’s been his go-to breaking ball against righties, whereas Priester typically threw his to lefties. The primary focus, though, could be similar. While the Brewers brought along Priester’s other pitches as the season progressed, their initial tweaks simplified things by letting his sinker play in the heart of the strike zone. Identifying that sinker as his best pitch, they upped its usage from 30% to 42%, eliminated his changeup, and moved him to the middle of the rubber to get him in the zone more often. Each of those adjustments could benefit Garabito. Between the big leagues and Triple A, his sinker produced a monstrous 72% ground ball rate. Like Priester, his changeup had very similar spin-induced movement. Pitching from the extreme third-base side of the rubber, he’s struggled with walks throughout his career, including 12.2% and 11.3% walk rates in Triple A and in the KBO last year, respectively. The Brewers’ plan for Garabito’s arsenal will soon become apparent. It could look familiar, and it might have him soaking up big-league innings later in the summer. View full article

Image courtesy of © Geoff Burke-Imagn Images With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training in less than two weeks, Brandon Woodruff and Quinn Priester look like the only true locks for spots in the Brewers’ rotation on opening day. Jacob Misiorowski and Chad Patrick are not guarantees, but their performances last year leave them well-positioned for the third and fourth slots. After those four, the club has plenty of young candidates for the fifth spot, but each with limited track records and, in some cases, concerns surrounding their arsenals as starting pitchers. Here are some potential developments that could separate a few arms from the rest of the pack next month. Logan Henderson’s Breaking Ball Of the contenders for the fifth rotation spot, Henderson may have the most impressive big-league resume to date, pitching to a 1.78 ERA, 3.20 SIERA, and 99 DRA- with a 33.3% strikeout rate in five starts last season. However, he profiles worse as a starter than most others do. That sample showed that his fastball and changeup combination can rack up whiffs against big-league hitters who haven’t seen him much, but those two pitches are not enough to effectively work multiple turns through an order. In those five outings, the Brewers only let Henderson face nine hitters a third time through, largely because his stuff was already less deceptive by the second turn. TTO BF Whiff% Chase% wOBA xwOBA 1st 45 27.2% 37.2% .189 .273 2nd 45 26.4% 29.9% .337 .368 3rd 9 35.0% 21.1% .077 .089 The same ability that makes Henderson’s fastball and changeup so good also makes it difficult for him to develop other pitches. As a pronator, he excels at generating pure backspin and sidespin by turning his wrist in toward his body at release, but he struggles to get his hand to the outside of the baseball to spin a breaking pitch. So far, Henderson has worked on a cutter and a short gyro slider, but Adam McCalvy reported in December that he spent the winter reviving the curveball he threw as an amateur. While Henderson is unlikely to get to a true curveball shape as a low-slot pronator, trying to get to the front of the ball at release could give him an offering with more consistent glove-side movement, supplying the balance his arsenal needs as a starter. Brandon Sproat’s Command Whereas Henderson’s arsenal needs more diversity, Sproat’s six-pitch mix can keep hitters off balance and doesn’t need much more development. That could give him a leg up on his peers, but he’ll have to demonstrate in camp that his command is big-league ready. FanGraphs currently tags Sproat with just 35-grade present-day command, and his walk rates in two minor-league seasons were lackluster for a starting pitcher. While the Brewers typically avoid forcing their pitchers into the same box mechanically, Chris Hook and the pitching development crew could tweak Sproat’s unorthodox delivery to get his hand more on time when his front foot lands. Will the Brewers Prefer a Left-Hander? Woodruff, Priester, Misiorowski, and Patrick are all right-handed, as are many of the prospects behind them. If the Brewers would rather round out their rotation with a southpaw, it could boost Robert Gasser’s case for the final spot. Like Sproat, Gasser has a complete starter’s arsenal, and he has better command. If the club sticks to its usual approach, lefty swingmen Aaron Ashby and DL Hall will also be stretched out in Arizona and could make rotation bids. There may need to be more matchup-related factors at play for handedness to swing the decision. The Brewers open the season by playing the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays. While the White Sox have a few decent left-handed bats, namely the recently signed Munetaka Murakami, many of the Rays’ best hitters are right-handed. Veteran Additions Pat Murphy pushed the front office to add veteran Jose Quintana last spring, and even though the Brewers are deeper in the rotation than they were at this time a year ago, he has already voiced concerns about starting depth in the wake of the Freddy Peralta trade. The Brewers also signed Tyler Alexander at the start of camp and could make a similar move again. In addition to Quintana, Zack Littell, Tyler Anderson, and Patrick Corbin are among the veteran innings-eaters who remain unsigned. The Brewers also developed a positive relationship with Jordan Montgomery, who was still rehabbing from Tommy John surgery when the Brewers acquired him with Shelby Miller at last year’s trade deadline. Should the sides agree to a reunion, his reported timeline may not put him on pace to open the year on an active roster. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jim Rassol-Imagn Images The focus on Jett Williams’s height has already become a bit tiresome, but it’s unlikely to fade anytime soon. Listed at 5-foot-7, the 22-year-old isn’t even the shortest player on his new team, which he described on Monday as “a bunch of short guys who are a little bit scrappy.” According to Stathead, the 2025 Brewers featured 17 position players under 6 feet tall, tying them with Atlanta for the second-most in baseball. In many ways, Williams’s brand of baseball matches his scrappy teammates, too. The Brewers emphasize swing decisions, swinging less than any other team as part of an on-base-centric approach. According to Baseball Prospectus, Williams’s 43% swing rate ranked in the 13th percentile of qualified minor-league hitters last year. A 13.3% walk rate helped him post a .363 on-base percentage. Tagged by FanGraphs with 60-grade speed, he stole 34 bases in 130 minor-league games last year. However, Williams’s approach when he does swing diverges from most of Milwaukee’s smaller hitters, who have below-average raw power and hit plenty of ground balls. Williams has frequently pulled the ball in the air, with average raw power. None of his peers had that combination last year. Williams’s closest comparators in size, Caleb Durbin and Sal Frelick, pulled enough fly balls to hit 11 and 12 homers in 2025, respectively. Durbin excelled at it in the minor leagues, too. However, due to their low 90th-percentile exit velocities, both appear to have maxed out their power. Without dramatic changes to their physiques and approaches, regularly hitting double-digit homers is unlikely. That’s where Williams separates himself. His 90th-percentile exit velocity in Triple A effectively tied him with Brice Turang, who is four inches taller and went on a second-half power binge despite a low pull-in-the-air rate. FanGraphs assigned Williams 50-grade raw power, and he hit seven home runs in 151 Triple-A plate appearances. Watching Williams hit reveals that, unlike other short Brewers, he’s not looking to slap the ball around the field at low trajectories. Like Durbin, he loads with an early leg kick and keeps his weight on his back leg as the pitch comes in. He then unleashes that energy with a faster and steeper swing than Durbin’s, with his barrel meeting the ball at an upward trajectory in front of the plate. The downside is that this approach could make Williams’s hit tool less reliable against big-league pitching. Early leg kicks and steep bat paths make some hitters vulnerable against velocity at the top of the zone. Williams whiffed on 28.4% of swings against four-seam fastballs in Triple A, where his 78% in-zone contact rate ranked in the 19th percentile. The Brewers, meanwhile, have failed to successfully develop hitters with faster and steeper swings, with Keston Hiura and Garrett Mitchell among those to be eaten alive by high fastballs in the big leagues. Opinions of Williams’s bat-to-ball ability vary. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline gave it a 55 grade in their most recent updates; FanGraphs, citing those potential concerns with high velocity, gave it a present grade of 30 and a future grade of 40. Much of his future value may hinge on whether the Brewers can get him to make enough contact. While Williams’s profile features plenty of the scrappiness the Brewers are known for, he’s not just another Pat Murphy favorite with a high floor and a low offensive ceiling. He has more raw power, and an approach geared toward hitting more home runs. Those traits create a wider range of potential outcomes for his development, but it was time that Milwaukee rolled the dice on a riskier hitter with more upside. Williams gives them the best of both worlds: more pop, but still plenty of grit. View full article

Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-Imagn Images Freddy Peralta was not the first key player the Brewers traded away as he neared free agency; nor will he be the last. This is the established cycle of Milwaukee player development: acquire players before they establish themselves in the big leagues, enjoy the best years of their careers on bargain salaries, and restart the process by trading them away for young, controllable talent when they get prohibitively expensive. It’s not the most exciting way to run a franchise, but this is the best way for the Brewers to utilize their resources. It allows them to assemble a competitive roster every year, which they believe puts them in the best position to win a World Series. Rather than putting all of their chips on the table for a potentially unsuccessful playoff run and then needing to do a complete teardown and prolonged rebuild, they accept the pain of dealing away cornerstones even as they mold new ones. The media latched onto Peralta’s trade candidacy because the Brewers had done this before, with Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes, and Devin Williams. Peralta’s case was different, though. Like Willy Adames, whom the Brewers kept until free agency, he was a respected clubhouse pillar. He’ll also make just $8 million in 2026, even after the best season of his career. Compared to Burnes or Williams, it was going to take more to pry Peralta away from Milwaukee. The Brewers ultimately pulled the trigger on a return that wasn’t quite overwhelming, but they received a suitable package from the New York Mets, who sent more talent than the Baltimore Orioles did for Burnes two years ago. Utility man Jett Williams and right-hander Brandon Sproat were Baseball America’s Nos. 4 and 5 Mets prospects, respectively, and were both in the Top 100 overall. Both have six full seasons of club control. “Jett and Brandon are two of the top up-and-coming talents in baseball,” president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said, adding that both players will compete for roster spots in spring training. “We are adding both a dynamic athlete and exciting arm to the organization that we see impacting the major-league team for years to come.” Williams has the most prospect buzz and the highest ceiling of the two. At 5-foot-7, it may be tempting to think the 22-year-old is another Pat Murphy guy whose gritty style of play makes him an average big-leaguer without flashy athleticism. In reality, the speedster has legitimate power for his size, which he leverages well with an uppercut swing that consistently pulls balls in the air. He hit 17 home runs in 572 minor-league plate appearances last year, including seven in 151 Triple-A plate appearances. There’s disagreement over Williams’s hit tool. While Baseball America and MLB Pipeline give his hitting a 55 grade, FanGraphs gave it a present grade of 30 and a future grade of 40 in June. His contact and strikeout rates were average in the lower minors, but his 78% in-zone contact rate in Triple-A ranked in the 19th percentile. The Brewers have developed contact-oriented hitters like Sal Frelick, Brice Turang, and Caleb Durbin into capable big-leaguers, but they have not succeeded with more suspect bat-to-ball hitters like Williams. He’s a project worth taking on, though. Milwaukee has enough position players with high floors and needs hitters with more power potential. Because his bat is still unpolished and he’s better suited for second base or center field than shortstop, Williams seems unlikely to be an immediate Joey Ortiz replacement. He’ll be best served by finishing his development in Triple A before reaching the majors in a multi-positional role. While Williams received more love on most prospect lists, the Brewers are best equipped to get the most out of Sproat, who could become the true jewel of the deal. He developed an above-average sinker last year, which became his primary fastball instead of his four-seamer when he reached the big leagues in September. He throws three distinct breaking balls, each of which grades well. Sproat’s 2025 results were below-average in Triple A and in four major-league starts, but he posted a 92 DRA- across the two levels, and his 112 Stuff+ after his callup ranked ninth among starters who threw at least 20 innings in September. He creates a wide range of shapes from a three-quarter arm slot, giving the Brewers plenty to mold to their liking. Chris Hook can also get to work optimizing his whippy delivery to clean up his inconsistent command. Because his changeup has a similar shape to his sinker and a velocity difference of only 5 mph, Sproat will likely join the list of pitchers to scrap it in games upon arriving in Milwaukee. The Brewers may also turn his shorter slider into a true cutter to give him three fastballs. Based on their usual approach, a sinker and sweeper combination will probably become Sproat’s bread and butter against righties, while lefties will see more high four-seamers and curveballs. The Brewers also sent Tobias Myers to the Mets in the deal. The 27-year-old posted a 73 ERA- as a rookie in 2024, but his lackluster peripherals caught up to him last year. Even if he rebounds a bit thanks to the split-changeup he added last summer, it’s still likely his career has already peaked, and he was buried on the Brewers’ pitching depth chart. Sproat profiles as a more impactful starter moving forward. Time will tell how Milwaukee fares without Peralta, who averaged nearly 32 starts across the last three regular seasons, but it received a solid return and still boasts a deep rotation. Sproat, Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser, and Coleman Crow are among the young pitchers set to make starts this year. Jacob Misiorowski and Chad Patrick also profile as breakout candidates, and the Brewers are also optimistic that Brandon Woodruff will be more durable in his second season after returning from shoulder surgery. Trading away star players while remaining competitive is a delicate balance. The Brewers haven’t always struck it perfectly, but it seems they’ve done so nicely with Peralta. View full article

Image courtesy of © Erik Williams-Imagn Images The Brewers have had a predictably quiet offseason. Milwaukee is returning most of the roster that won a league-leading 97 regular-season games last year. ZiPS projects them for at least 2 fWAR—the benchmark for a capable starter—at every position but first base. Because the existing team has a high floor and a small budget, signing mid-tier free agents would be a poor use of resources. To get the most bang for their buck, the Brewers would have to go big, but most of the top free agents are out of their price range, particularly amid the financial fallout of the club terminating its broadcast rights deal with Main Street Sports Group. That leaves low-risk, high-reward acquisitions as the best way for the Brewers to round out their roster, which could still use more power and another bench infielder behind Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seigler. Brendan Rodgers might be the best free agent to check both boxes. Rodgers was a potential target a year ago, before the Brewers acquired Caleb Durbin to round out their infield. The former Colorado Rockies top prospect ultimately signed a minor-league contract with the Houston Astros, with whom he limped to a career-worst .191/.266/.278 line (55 wRC+) in 128 plate appearances. He hit the injured list on June 18 with an oblique strain. While on a rehab assignment, he collided with shortstop Edwin Díaz while fielding a ground ball, sustaining a concussion and a nasal fracture that ended his season. There were some promising signs in Rodgers’s bat when he was healthy. He added 2.4 mph of average bat speed, which allowed him to hit the ball harder. He also nearly doubled his rate of balls pulled in the air. Season Avg. Bat Speed (MPH) Avg Exit Velo (MPH) Barrel% HardHit% Pull Air% xwOBAcon 2024 71.7 89.3 5.6% 44.1% 9.9% .369 2025 74.1 90.5 14.3% 48.6% 17.1% .421 Because he was making louder contact, Rodgers’s .296 xwOBA and 98 DRC+ suggested he was better than his results indicated. Even those marks were unremarkable, though. Rodgers was swinging faster and meeting the ball in front of the plate more consistently, but his bat-to-ball ability suffered amid those changes. Not much of a contact hitter to begin with, he saw his whiff rate skyrocket from 25.9% to 37.8% last year. His 35.9% strikeout rate was a career-worst mark. That much swing-and-miss won’t cut it, but Rodgers could figure things out with more time to acclimate to a new approach or some adjustments that bring him to the right mix of power and contact. He’s still under 30 years old, and there’s some upside in his bat if he’s healthy. There would be no risk for the Brewers in signing him to a minor-league deal to compete in spring training for a roster spot. The greatest question surrounding Rodgers may be his usefulness in the field as a backup infielder. A former minor-league shortstop, he quickly moved to second base in the big leagues, where his defense has been inconsistent. His suspect arm could complicate his ability to fill in at third base, although the Brewers made do with Durbin’s below-average throwing at the hot corner last year. Even if Rodgers isn’t the perfect fit, he may be a worthwhile bargain. View full article

Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-Imagn Images While Joey Ortiz may have tested his manager’s patience with his poor plate discipline throughout a trying 2025 season, the Brewers continued to give him a long leash as their everyday shortstop. It seems there’s still plenty of slack left on that leash, as president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said during last month’s Winter Meetings that the team remains confident in Ortiz’s upside. The Brewers should remain open-minded about the position, but they shouldn’t feel a pressing need to upgrade. Even if Ortiz does not reach that perceived ceiling, he’s still a capable big-leaguer at a premium defensive position, and the organization’s long-term solution at shortstop could reach the majors within the next two seasons. Even though his 67 wRC+ last year was the third-lowest among qualified hitters, Ortiz’s defense still made him worth 1.4 fWAR. His 0.3 bWAR was closer to replacement level because it was calculated using his -2 Defensive Runs Saved rather than his +10 Fielding Run Value, but given his defensive improvements throughout the summer, the latter seems to be a better preview of how valuable his glove will be this year. To replace Ortiz, the Brewers would need to find a shortstop who is clearly better than him. The free agents in their price range wouldn’t move that needle; only the recently-signed Bo Bichette is projected by FanGraphs’ Depth Charts system for a higher 2026 fWAR than Ortiz’s 2.5. Player 2025 fWAR Projected 2026 fWAR Joey Ortiz 1.4 2.5 Ha-Seong Kim (signed by ATL) 0.3 2.4 Willi Castro (signed by COL) 0.5 1.4 Miguel Rojas (signed by LAD) 1.7 0.6 Isiah Kiner-Falefa 0.7 0.5 Jon Berti -0.4 0.5 Jose Iglesias -0.2 0.4 Because even the worst version of Ortiz was still above replacement-level in 2025, he’s at least a capable holdover while the organization’s best shortstop prospects continue developing in the upper minors. Cooper Pratt appears poised to start the season in Triple-A, and Jesús Made seems to be on Jackson Chourio’s track of beginning his third professional season in Double-A and debuting in 2027. It’s also possible that a reworked group of hitting coaches led by Eric Theisen gets Ortiz in a better hitting position. His strong 84.6% contact rate in 2025 indicated that his hit tool hadn’t disappeared. Most of his issues stemmed from timing; Ortiz had above-average bat speed, but he usually started his swing so late in a pitch’s trajectory that he rarely had a chance to extend his arms and get his barrel through the zone by the time he made contact. Ortiz’s leash will expire eventually if he doesn’t significantly improve his offense, but he remains the Brewers’ best option at shortstop for now. Giving him another shot in 2026 is the right call. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images For the second year in a row, the Brewers exchanged salary figures with William Contreras, rather than agreeing to a new contract ahead of baseball's filing deadline for arbitration-eligible players. It's been unsurprising both times. Contreras is the closest of Milwaukee's position players to a true star, which means he's looked to push the limits of how much money he can earn in a system based on precedent. As of this writing, the two camps are reportedly likely to go to a hearing to determine Contreras's 2026 salary. Because a team must argue against the player to win its case, there is always a risk of souring the relationship between the two. The Brewers and Contreras avoided that fate last year by agreeing to a one-year deal with a club option for 2026 at the end of January. Like most teams, the Brewers maintain an informal policy that proscribes agreeing to one-year deals after exchanging figures, so the club option was an escape hatch that allowed both sides to dodge the hearing but Milwaukee to claim that they had adhered to their policy. The tradeoff was that Contreras's 2025 salary was higher than the precedent for first-year arbitration catchers of his caliber, but depending on how well he played, the club could either exercise or decline the option to keep him from setting a new baseline the following year. While the sides could again reach a similar arrangement, there was greater incentive then for the Brewers to maintain a positive relationship with their starting catcher. It may be different this time, as history suggests that Contreras is nearing his final chapter in Milwaukee. Signing Contreras to a market-value extension would be an unusually risky investment for the club, which would be better off acquiring or developing another catcher entering his prime. In that case, they should entertain trading him next winter, before he hits free agency. A hearing would strain the relationship for one season, with little impact on his future with the team. Furthermore, of the two parties, the Brewers appear better positioned to win a potential hearing. Contreras filed at $9.9 million, which would set a new record for a catcher in his second year of arbitration, while the Brewers filed at $8.55 million, the current record set by Will Smith in 2024. (As a reminder, it doesn't matter that even $9.9 million would be a bargain for Contreras, whose free-agent value in 2025 was estimated at $29.2 million by FanGraphs. Arbitration is an entirely different system of player compensation in which salary increases are determined based on past raises given to similar players.) The burden will be on Contreras's camp to persuade a panel of arbitrators that he has been more valuable than Smith was at the same point in his career. Statistically, it's not a particularly convincing case. Smith was a slightly better hitter, and Contreras's edge in games played is mainly due to Smith's second season being the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. Player Team Games Player Games HR OPS wRC+ fWAR Contreras (2020-2025) 870 599 85 .805 123 16.9 Smith (2019-2023) 708 484 91 .840 128 15.7 On the surface, the Brewers and Contreras are in the same situation as last winter: he wants to raise the bar for catcher salaries, the Brewers would rather maintain the status quo, and the right contract can satisfy both sides. The context is different this time, though. Everyone involved should prepare for a more contentious process—and yes, that's likely to be the first in a series of events blazing his trail out of town. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images He may not have received much love during baseball’s awards season, but Chad Patrick’s rookie season was among the most productive in baseball. The right-hander filled in admirably for an injury-ravaged Milwaukee rotation during the first half and posted a 3.53 ERA and 3.90 SIERA in 119 ⅔ innings. His 2.6 fWAR tied for second among National League rookies. Despite that value, the shape of Patrick’s season left him somewhat overlooked. After the Brewers got healthier, he bounced on and off the roster throughout the second half. Even though his fWAR matched those of Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins, who finished third and fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting, respectively, Patrick finished seventh. After serving as an unsung hero during the regular season, Patrick vaulted himself into the national spotlight when he moved to the bullpen for the postseason. His average fastball velocity climbed to nearly 96 mph in shorter spurts, and he allowed just three hits in nine innings, with a 35% strikeout rate. The Brewers will likely stretch Patrick back out in spring training, and he might be the most intriguing of last season's returning starters. He was second in Stuff+ among regular Brewers starters, trailing only Jacob Misiorowski and finishing ahead of Milwaukee ace (and popular trade target) Freddy Peralta. Jacob Misiorowski (119 Stuff+) Chad Patrick (105) Freddy Peralta (102) Quinn Priester (97) Brandon Woodruff (96) Given his perceived shortcomings, seeing Patrick as the runner-up on that list may initially be surprising. For most of the season, the narrative was that his limited arsenal was effective early in games but made him vulnerable as a true starter. When the Brewers optioned him back to Nashville on July 6, 87% of his pitches thrown had been some kind of fastball. Without reliable secondary pitches, he got hit hard as the game progressed. Opponents had a .398 wOBA the third time through the order against Patrick. Left-handed hitters posted an overall .341 wOBA against him. When the Brewers recalled Patrick for a spot start on August 19, he returned with a new breaking ball that had greater movement separation from his signature cutter. Statcast classifies it as a slurve, but Patrick usually calls it a curveball. The new pitch worked wonders for him. Including the postseason, opponents managed just three singles in 16 at-bats while whiffing on 45% of swings. During that time, he limited left-handers to a .268 wOBA. The curveball’s 117 Stuff+ was well above average. There had always been a tradeoff with Patrick’s arsenal: his three distinct fastball shapes made it challenging for hitters to identify which kind of heater they were seeing, but they could almost always gear up for something between 87 and 95 mph, without much drop. According to Baseball Prospectus, his movement and velocity spreads both ranked in the 7th percentile of qualified pitchers. Averaging nearly 86 mph, Patrick’s curveball didn’t significantly expand his poor velocity spread, but it did fix his movement spread problem. Each of his fastballs averaged at least 11.1 inches of induced vertical break, but the curveball averaged -4.3 inches. Hitters could no longer eliminate a pitch with true downward bite and now had a wider range of movement and location to cover. Patrick also masked the pitch incredibly well. According to Baseball Prospectus’s tunneling metrics, hitters had only a 12% chance of correctly identifying it as a curveball by the time they needed to decide whether to swing. That was the sixth-lowest probability among pitches thrown at least 25 times during the regular season. Instead, they were 47% likely to misidentify it as a cutter. Even if those probabilities become less extreme as Patrick throws more curveballs over a larger sample, the pitch should still be plenty deceptive. Given how well the cutter and curveball tunnel off one another, it should come as no surprise that he leaned more on that pairing during his dominant postseason. While that October excellence generated the most buzz surrounding Patrick’s future, his potential is not tied to the bullpen. His new breaking ball will play in any role, and while those shorter outings gave his velocity an extra nudge, his average four-seamer and two-seamer were already climbing toward 95 mph as a starter. Patrick isn’t the youngest arm in a deep stable of potential Brewers starters; nor does his arsenal look the flashiest at first glance. But he revealed more upside late last year than he did earlier in the season. His new breaking ball can keep hitters off-balance deeper into games and make him less vulnerable against lefties. Other Brewers might garner more popularity as breakout picks, but Patrick appears as close as any of them to putting it all together. It's time to stop overlooking him. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images The Brewers announced their coaching staff under Pat Murphy for the 2026 season on Monday morning, including significant shakeups from last year's group. Four existing coaches have assumed new roles, a few others have taken jobs elsewhere in the organization, and four have joined the big-league staff. The first notable takeaway is that several coaches who have been heavily involved in game planning have been promoted to roles centered on those duties. Jason Lane has been elevated from third-base coach to offense and strategy coordinator; Jim Henderson from assistant pitching coach to pitching coordinator; and Daniel de Mondesert from assistant coach to game preparation specialist. To fill the vacancies left by those changes, Matt Erickson will become the third-base coach, while continuing to coach infielders, and Juan Sandoval will be the new assistant pitching coach. The promotion continues Sandoval's quick rise through the organization's coaching ranks. He started as a pitching coach in the Dominican Republic in 2022, before becoming assistant coordinator of minor-league pitching, a role in which he roamed throughout the farm system. The most notable shakeups may be to the hitting and baserunning staffs. The Brewers announced that former lead hitting coach Al LeBeouf and first base coach Julio Borbón will transition to front-office roles with an emphasis on player development and scouting. Eric Theisen has been promoted from assistant hitting coach to lead hitting coach, where he'll be flanked by new hires Daniel Vogelbach and former Toronto Blue Jays hitting coach Guillermo Martinez. Former director of player development Spencer Allen will be the new first-base coach. Vogelbach may be the most interesting hire. He's the youngest of the bunch, and his emphasis on swing decisions as a player could gel nicely with how the Brewers coach plate discipline. He swung at just 47.7% of in-zone pitches during his career, preferring to offer only at those in his wheelhouse. Milwaukee hitters have baseball's lowest in-zone swing rate over the past two seasons (62.1%), with Murphy saying that his young players must know which strikes not to swing at based on their bat paths. Allen, who was previously the organization's outfield and baserunning instructor, will look to lead a bounce-back at stealing bases. Coincidentally or not, the Brewers took a significant step back in that department last year, when Borbón replaced baserunning guru Quintin Berry. Murphy attributed it to more hesitant reads and jumps against opposing pitchers. Perhaps a new voice at first base will get them back to their more aggressive ways. Pitching coach Chris Hook, bullpen coach Charlie Greene, and field coordinator Nestor Corredor will all return for 2026 in their existing roles. The other notable members of the 2025 staff were Connor Dawson, who left for a hitting coach job with the Royals, and Rickie Weeks, who also moves back to a front-office role after two years as Murphy's lieutenant in the dugout. View full article

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images When Garrett Mitchell hit the injured list in late April while Blake Perkins continued recovering from a fractured shin, the Brewers handed Jackson Chourio the keys to center field. The results were mixed. Chourio had a positive Outs Above Average (2), but that net estimate came from some extremes of performance. Chourio both rated well metrically and passed the eye test when pursuing balls laterally, but struggled when going back or coming straight in on the ball. Only 11 outfielders made at least four 5-star catches (those with an estimated catch probability under 10%), according to Statcast. Chourio was one of them. However, those 11 players' success rates on catches the system rated as easier (1-4 stars) went as follows: Ceddanne Rafaela - 94.6% Victor Scott II - 94.4 Denzel Clarke - 93.6 Jacob Young - 92.5 Pete Crow-Armstrong - 91.4 Myles Straw - 91.3 Kyle Isbel - 88.5 Steven Kwan - 85.7 Wilyer Abreu - 81.4 Isaac Collins - 78.4 Jackson Chourio - 76.8 In other words, Chourio could be exceptionally rangy, but he was also mistake-prone. No Brewers fan has much trouble reconciling that data with their day-to-day experience. akQ5Z0FfWGw0TUFRPT1fVWdnRFVGTURCVllBQ1ZjTFV3QUhWUVJTQUFCV1ZGY0FCUVFFQVFRRlZ3WURVUUJU.mp4 After coming up through the minor leagues as a center fielder, Chourio played exclusively in the corners in his rookie campaign of 2024. Gold Glove right fielder Sal Frelick entered the year with 55 career big-league appearances in center and has been more fundamentally consistent in the field. The Brewers moved Chourio instead, though, because his skill set is better suited to play up the middle. While Frelick plays an aggressive outfield in his own right, Chourio is the more explosive athlete. He had the superior sprint speed—29.2 feet per second in 2025, which ranked in the 93rd percentile. That early quickness enabled him to have better jumps on batted balls, while still taking average routes. Moving quickly on contact leaves an outfielder with less time to read the ball, so most players with better jumps take less direct routes. As the defenders tasked with covering the most ground, good center fielders must be able to do both. Chourio falls into that category in the graph above. He’s one of the defenders near the vertical midpoint and to the right of the average line. His neighbors include Daulton Varsho, Bryce Teodosio, and Andy Pages, all of whom are strong defensive center fielders. Frelick, meanwhile, sits right along the line, meaning his reaction time and routes make him best suited for a corner spot. Scouts knew Chourio had the tools to be an above-average center fielder, with most prospect rankings assigning a 60 grade to his glove. The numbers back up those eye tests. It’s still a question whether he will develop the increased awareness and confidence to turn that athleticism into more consistent defense. If he can’t, he’ll be better off in the corners, where his speed can compensate for some of his weaknesses with less ground to cover. For instance, he'll have to get better at managing space and feeling the wall when pushed back to the barrier. ek1MNTBfWGw0TUFRPT1fVjFNRkJWZFZYd2NBRFZRSEFBQUhWRkFBQUZsV1V3SUFBd1pSVXdOVVVnZFhCVllG.mp4 The Brewers may be best off if Chourio can make those strides in 2026. While Mitchell, Perkins, Brandon Lockridge, and Steward Berroa are great defensive center fielders, none of them is likely to fill Milwaukee’s need for more consistent power. The most in-house help could come from a change in left field, where Chourio has played most of his big-league innings. Jake Bauers has long flashed impressive raw power, and he finally made enough contact in September to start taking advantage of it. Shifting Christian Yelich back to the field semi-regularly would also give the Brewers more flexibility to slide another bat into the DH spot. However, both are poor fielders on a defensively-minded roster. Bauers has been worth -11 DRS and -12 OAA in just over 200 games in the outfield, while Yelich has not graded positively in either metric since 2018. Barring significant roster changes, the Brewers face a decision between defensive floor and offensive upside in their outfield. Inserting a bigger bat in left field may only be worth the gamble if they have a center fielder who can run down balls in the gap that Bauers or Yelich won’t reach. That risk becomes easier to take if Chourio becomes more trustworthy in center. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images When Jacob Misiorowski reached the big leagues in June, it was fair to assume that the Brewers would avoid overcomplicating things and tell him to let his signature fastball eat. Since the start of 2024, no team has had its starting pitchers throw fastballs a greater percentage of the time than the Brewers. Misiorowski’s four-seamer just might be the best among starters, leading all non-openers in Stuff+ (121) and StuffPro (-1.2) in 2025. That wasn’t how it played out. Misiorowski threw his fastball less as a Brewer than he did in Triple A. During his electrifying performance as a long reliever in the postseason, he threw it less than 50% of the time. Misiorowski and the Brewers replaced those four-seamers with more sliders, even though his power curveball is arguably his best secondary pitch and proved tougher for hitters to barrel up in his rookie season. Pitch Type Stuff+ Whiff% Chase% xwOBA SL 118 24.1% 21.8% .309 CU 127 33.3% 34.3% .255 This wasn’t Milwaukee’s pitching coaches abandoning their affinity for fastballs. What Misiorowski calls his slider is effectively a cutter. There is not always a clear line between those two pitch types, but in this case, the distinction matters. The Brewers want most of their starters to throw multiple fastball variants, and thinking of Misiorowski’s slider as a cutter checks that box. They consistently kept his overall fastball usage around 80%, and only changed how he played those two heaters off one another. Misiorowski’s so-called slider had the mid-90s velocity of a cutter, leading all qualified sliders in average velocity by more than 2 mph. It also spun like a cutter; a relatively high spin efficiency means it had a cutter’s offset backspin instead of a bullet slider’s true football spin, and fewer spin units means it spun less than a typical slider would at that velocity. That combination of velocity and spin made it move like a cutter; it didn’t drop much and had less glove-side break. Metric Misiorowski SL MLB RH SL MLB RH CT MPH 94.1 86.1 89.7 Spin Efficiency 45.5% 33.0% 46.9% Spin Units 26.4 28.3 26.9 iVB 6.4 1.8 8.2 HB 3.0 4.5 2.1 If it has the velocity of a cutter, spins like a cutter, and moves like a cutter, it’s probably a cutter. On a graph of velocity and spin, Misiorowski’s pitch lands in its own unique space, but it’s much closer to the brown cutter cluster than the yellow slider one. Most importantly, he and the Brewers used it like a cutter. A traditional slider is often a chase pitch thrown around the edges of the plate, but Misiorowski threw 59.5% of his cutters in the zone. That was the highest in-zone rate of any pitch in his arsenal, and it would have ranked 20th among 405 sliders thrown at least 50 times. He often threw it up and in to righties, a target location similar to his four-seamer. The Brewers believe mixing different kinds of fastballs improves pitch masking. It’s easier to make a four-seamer, two-seamer, and cutter look alike out of hand than other pitch types. Their spin is similar enough to keep a hitter from differentiating them early in the ball’s flight, and the pitcher doesn’t need to change his release to get on top of or in front of the ball, as he does to throw a sweeping breaking ball. Misiorowski is no exception. Look at how tightly his four-seamer (the red tracer) and cutter (the yellow tracer) mirror each other during a right-handed hitter’s decision window, while his curveball (the blue tracer) pops above them immediately. Baseball Prospectus attempts to quantify pitch masking using tunneling metrics, which measure the probability that a hitter will correctly identify a pitch by the time he must decide whether to swing or take. According to this model, hitters were likely to recognize Misiorowski’s curveball, but they could easily mistake a cutter for a four-seamer. Pitch Type FA Probability CT Probability CU Probability CH Probability FA 79.3% 15.7% 2.7% 2.4% FC 38.2% 57.2% 1.6% 2.9% CU 18.3% 4.7% 72.4% 4.6% CH 32.2% 17.6% 8.6% 41.7% That’s not to say Misiorowski’s curveball is not a weapon. Its strong results demonstrate that it has sufficient velocity and movement to generate off-balance swings without great deception. However, the Brewers are often more focused on how a starter’s arsenal comes together as a whole than how each of his pitches plays individually. Through that lens, Misiorowski’s four-seamer and cutter are his best pairing, with the curveball remaining a put-away pitch and an extra tool against left-handed hitters. His postseason sample showed how effective that combination can be when properly sequenced. Opponents managed only a .277 wOBA against Misiorowski’s four-seamer in October, while his cutter yielded just a .147 wOBA and a 41.9% whiff rate. It’s safe to assume the Brewers will keep him on some version of the multi-fastball plan until further notice, even if he labels that second fastball as a breaking pitch. As the guy throwing it, Misiorowski reserves the right to call it whatever he wants, but you and I know what we're seeing. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images It's become an annual tradition in Milwaukee: A pitcher acquired in a minor transaction breaks out as a consistent middle reliever who can handle occasional high-leverage work for a couple of seasons. It was Hoby Milner in 2022, Joel Payamps the following year, Jared Koenig after that, and Grant Anderson in 2025. None of them truly emerged out of nowhere, though. The Brewers brought each of them in because they saw qualities that could make them effective: Milner and Anderson's deception; Payamps's sweeping slider; and Koenig's velocity spike upon becoming a full-time reliever. The front office constructs strong bullpens by continually stockpiling intriguing pitch qualities throughout the organization. Not all of those guys pan out, but if you collect enough spaghetti to throw at the wall, some will stick to round out an eight-man bullpen. Easton McGee fit that mold from the moment the Brewers signed him to a two-year, minor-league deal in November 2023, making him a name to watch in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery. Sure enough, he joined the 40-man roster in May and spent the summer riding the bullpen shuttle between Milwaukee and Nashville. The results were unimposing. In 14 ⅔ low-leverage innings, McGee pitched to a 5.52 ERA and 103 DRA-. The real accomplishment of his season was that he showcased the qualities in his post-surgery arsenal that could yield future success. A former starter, McGee throws five pitches with distinct shapes, plus a rarely-used changeup. Between Triple-A and the big leagues, his sinker induced ground balls on 57.8% of batted balls, while his four-seamer produced a 31.1% whiff rate. Both pitches jumped from averaging 90 mph to 93 mph with the move to the bullpen. A more consistent cutter gave McGee the fully-developed trio of fastballs the Brewers love, and he has two big breaking pitches to choose from based on the angles he wants to play in a given matchup. Pitch grading models see McGee's stuff as average, but some of the movement he creates is more impressive from his arm angle. He stands 6-foot-7, but his low-three-quarters delivery pushes his average release height (5.5 feet) below the league norm for right-handed pitchers (5.8 feet). From that slot, one would expect McGee to be a sinker-slider guy, and those two pitches made up his primary mix to righties in 2025. However, his four-seamer and curveball are arguably his most deceptive offerings. The former had two more inches of carry than usual for his arm angle, while the latter had three more inches of unexpected depth. McGee could join Anderson as a sinkerballer by trade who leans more heavily on an effective high four-seamer over time. He already used his curveball more frequently in the big leagues, perhaps because it's the only secondary offering he throws from a nearly identical arm slot to his fastballs. The right-hander still has some hurdles to clear before a breakout season. His delivery puts him at risk of struggling with platoon splits, which was already the case in his debut. While righties managed just a .252 xwOBA against McGee, his low slot is a much easier look for lefties, who tagged him for a .366 xwOBA. To hedge those splits, McGee must find a way to be deceptive most of the time, not just with a particular pitch. Given the array of shapes in his arsenal, that may be a matter of deciding which pitches to use, learning how to sequence them, and developing more consistent release points. If McGee makes those strides, don't be surprised if he ascends from the roster bubble to become a regular contributor. View full article