TODAY: The Brewers officially announced Anderson’s deal.
FEB. 16, 4:38pm: The two sides have a one-year, $2.5MM deal in place, pending a physical, per Jeff Passan of ESPN. Anderson could earn an additional $1MM in incentives.
4:36pm: The Brewers and free-agent left-hander Brett Anderson are “in serious discussions” on a contract, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. Anderson spent last year with the Brewers.
Now 33 years old, the ever-promising Anderson overcame a spate of injuries earlier in his career to emerge as a solid back-end option over the past couple of seasons. Anderson tossed a career-high 176 innings of 3.89 ERA ball with the Athletics in 2019, and he parlayed that effort into a $5MM guarantee with the Brewers last offseason.
During his first season in Milwaukee, the soft-tossing Anderson turned in 47 innings in 10 starts and logged passable numbers for a No. 4/5 rotation option. He ended the year with a 4.21 ERA/4.40 SIERA and an exemplary 57.7 percent groundball rate. Although Anderson didn’t strike out many hitters (15.8 percent), he somewhat offset that by walking just 5.0 percent of the batters he faced. Anderson’s strikeout and walk numbers essentially lined up with the figures he has put up during a career that began in 2009 and has spanned 1,044 1/3 innings.
If he stays in Milwaukee, Anderson will vie for starts in a rotation set to include Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes at the top. Josh Lindblom, Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer will also compete for jobs, and the Brewers just added another candidate in veteran Jordan Zimmermann on a minor league contract.
Brewers should not be going after him
It’s wild that he’s still playing for a team. Imagine signing a guy who has missed almost 70% of mlb games since he made it to the big leagues in 2009
Lefties who can get outs man, more lives than a cat.
I like it. LH starting depth and he was ok last year. These are important moves. I just REALLY want one more impact move like the Wong signing.
i think its pretty funny that people were talking about Brett on the chat earlier, and here’s news about him.. guess they’re not bringing him home?
Glitch in the Matrix?
Mr. Anderson gets $2.5MM deal followed by Mr. Anderson gets $2.5MM deal.
And pretty much same photo.
Is Craig Anderson next? Coming out of retirement at age 82?
Marlon Anderson
Bud and Kitten from Father Knows Best.
Deep cut.
The Rangers still lead the league in Anderson signings this winter
much better then the Moore and Anderson deals
The way the headline is phrased suggests the Brewers were reluctant but ultimately agreed to re-sign him. “Fine, we’ll re-sign you.”
Maybe he asked very, very nicely
Or they wanted the number down to $2.5 rather than $4 or $5. They can thank Atkins for that (see: Ray, Robbie).
Why? Just why? Like their rotation is fine. In case one of them does crappy they got Zimmerman.
Zimmermann is far from a sure thing, unfortunately. Teams can never have too much depth. I would like to see another starter. On the higher end, Woodruff, Burnes, Odorizzi would be a nice 1-3.
Good day to be named Anderson. Red Sox are signing Mellissa Sue Anderson to be opening day starter.
Great can’t wait to watch him to struggle through 3 innings every game again. Another bone head signing.
What did you want them to do? Sign Bauer? Overpay for Turner? Considering there’s no guarantee there’ll even be fans in the seats this year, it’s a frugal depth move. Can never have enough pitching.
Walker and Odorizzi are still available. Before using the payroll and salary excuse let’s keep in-mind Milwaukee is still considered a division contender.
Do you honestly think the Brewers can afford Walker, let alone Odorizzi? Salary/payroll isn’t an excuse, it’s a reality. Without fans in the stands the Brewers are handcuffed even more fiscally.
Think Walker is signing with Mets. What’s the difference both can’t make the five inning mark to qualify for a win anyway…..
I dont think the Brewers have enough pitching to get it done. They are short a bat in their lineup too. They seem to be one of those teams that over perform every year so could be wrong.
Am I the only one who actually kinda likes this move?? He had a 108 era+ last year and a 110+ the year before that. For 2.5-3.5 million why the heck not? He was better than Houser, Layer, and Lindblom last year, seems like a great low-risk medium-reward pickup.
It’s a solid depth move. I’m not sold on Lauer or Houser at this point. With Anderson you pretty much know what you’re going to get.
No Swag your not. Great signing. GB machine with this teams improved D, especially on IF, sets him up to have a nice season, Houser also, with him being another GB machine. The LH arm also gives the team 2 R/L tandems they’ll now use to help limit and spread innings.
Woodruff
Burnes
Houser/Suter
Lindblom/Lauer
Anderson/Peralta
Lindblom’s 2020 3.78 FIP and 10.3 K/9 bode well for this coming season, and if Peralta takes the next step, that’s a deep group of starter arms. Then add the best bullpen in the game and that’s a nasty staff.
I like it as well.
This is the most succinct explanation of the Brewers’ rotation strategy I have seen, and I have to agree. This is shaping up to be the best overall staff of these recent contending years, and the offense almost literally can’t be worse than last year. Arenado in the Central blows, but tbh the other 3 teams in the division could all be punching bags this year.
Hard to complain about a guy who can potentially give you 150 innings of league average SP production for 2.5 mil. No he’s not going to be Trevor Bauer but let us look at it this way to put a positive spin on it: if Trevor Bauer is going to make 28 million this season and Brett Anderson is going to make 2.5 million this season, then technically all he has to do is put up numbers that are a little bit above 1/10th as good as Bauer’s and the Brewers have gotten better production for the money they spent. Little solace I know, here’s to hoping they trade Hader for somebody who can hit.
Excluding 2020 which was a short season, the dude has averaged around 90 innings per season. Expecting 150 innings is a stretch.
Since the most innings pitched by any starter in 2020 was 84 innings, expecting 150 innings from over half the starters in MLB is a stretch.
And now we’re closing in on Travis Shaw!
It is not easy keeping track of these Andersons. Two signed today. Both are soft-throwing and I doubt will have much of a positive impact. Saw Brett get hammered against the Nationals. It will be interesting to see if Burnes progresses this year.
“Brewers catcher Omar Narvaez said Sunday that Corbin Burnes’ changeup looks way better so far in camp than it did last year. “I think it’s a big weapon for him this year,” Narvaez added. Burnes started throwing a cutter in 2020 which really helped solve his issues against left-handed batters. If he is indeed sporting an improved changeup, it’s yet another weapon he has to stifle lefties.”
Sounds pretty promising. I’m expecting a big year for him (and Woodruff too).
How does that guy keep getting signed?
He’s left handed. Thats it.