The Cubs gave up two pitchers for Willi Castro. Ryan Gallagher and Sam Armstrong both in AA and are fast movers. Ryan drafted last year and Sam in 2023. I know very little about them but looking at the stats it feels like Brewer comparables would be Hardin and Hunt. That's a lot to give up for a couple months of Willi Castro. Not sure I would do that.
I can buy this argument. But that definitely supports the Brewers being cheap. So they had no room in the payroll at all? We are only talking about few million increase. What about all the sellouts they have had recently, particularly the weekday Miz starts. We are not investing that into this roster?
I clearly overvalued Cortes. I hope I am underselling lockridge.
Note we also have to clear two 40 man roster spots for Lockridge and Miller. Cortes and Montgomery were both on 60 day IL so that is no impact.
Means we need to expose two players on our 40 man roster.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/07/padres-acquire-nestor-cortes.html
Yeah, this makes no sense. We had to trade a decent prospect to get rid of Cortes??!!?
Even MLBTR is confused as they thought Quintana is coming back to us.
Montgomery was on a $22.5M deal, which is roughly $7.5M remaining. Brewers saved roughly $2.5M on Cortes, so they grew payroll by ~$5M to get Shelby. That's some creative maneuvering.
The question the Brewers are likely asking is whether O'Hearn would be better than Vaughn the rest of this season and if so, by how much? Will it be worth the prospects we have to give up? Vaughn wont continue to hit like this, but has he made enough adjustments to revert back to the 750 OPS player he was early in his career? O'Hearn has struggled in June but improved in July. Will he revert back to how he hit earlier this year or will he be a 780 OPS guy the rest of the way?
I dont envy the Brewers, as I could make a case either way.
I was not a believer at the time of the trade, but I am now. I'll be referring to him going forward as "Brewers Legend, Andrew Vaughn". And maybe give Civale team MVP for changing the complexity of this team. Thank you, Aaron!
In 4 years of college ball (61 relief innings) he has a career ERA of 7.08. Strikeouts were not the problem (94), but walks definitely were. Much better results in his 9.1 IP in the frontier league. Feels like a project for the Brewers. That's some nugget mining though.
Logan is a prime candidate for relief innings with the Brewers. SP depth is hardly a concern at this point. It just makes so much sense to limit his innings this year and get more major league exposure. Then have him start again in spring training next year.
Should be interesting to see how they use Jansen. He is having a better season than Contreras and with the lingering injury, is likely to outperform him the rest of the year. I wont get my hopes up, but he really should be getting the majority of AB at C.
Interesting. thanks for doing the research Spencer! So, looks like the Brewers typically sign 6-7 NDFA each year and they have signed seven so far this year. Probably means they have signed who they wanted to sign.
There is no advantage to IL him now. They can back date the IL to when he was injured, so I am sure they will wait until the end of the all star break.
That's quite a hit to the AAA pitching. If only we had deserving pitching candidates in AA that could fill the void. Oh wait, we have plenty. Should result in well deserved opportunities for Yeager, Fitzpatrick, Kuehner, Cornielle... Lots to choose from.
Do we think any DSL players will go stateside after their season ends? Guys like Rangel, Polanco, maybe Tovar? Its very likely they will hit the stateside roster limit so that may hinder any promotions.